Caldeliñas, Licaon's rest.

Like the big discoveries of the history of the science, what I will report the continuation also it was for the vicissitudes of the random.

Since I left said in the previous post, the anonymus investigator which I found at the AHPO spoke with me, coming to a mutual understanding. Every the one who spoke about his area, so, he spoke and spoke about the systems of file, of the jewels that shelters the archive in which we were, and even of the private files, which in Galicia is habitual that important documents for the study and memory of a country are spread in private collections.

Nevertheless, he said to me that although he was not sure, an antiquarian of Monterrei's region, who shows a good collection of historical documents, has in property something unpublished of Manuel Blanco Romasanta. Before post it had to verify if such find was true.
Today I run to the south ourensano with few signs that the assistant director had given me, antiquarian tried to locate it, which name I cannot publish.
It was not easy, but at the end. I find him, in the most improbable place, from that you do not expect so much about it. The antiquarian is a man of which doesn’t like the questions and with this look that we all saw at some time that debates between, basically, two actions observe looking but avoiding the looks.
Like many I found since i came to Europe; is distrustful, and suspects even of the recommendations of his colleague of the AHPO.

With distrust he confessed to me that he had documents related to Romasanta... Finally he agrees to reveal this great secret, after putting in touch with the Lycan Foundation, and to verify veracity of my verbal ones.
He took me up to his “palace", he entered in his deposit of antiques, and made me wait on the street. He went out carrying a bundle of papers little bigger than a sheet of paper, cutlery with caps of brown leather. They were all the notes that if they preserve (at leat this is said) of Caldeliñas's former Resort from 1817 up to its closing.

Caldeliñas's Resort is between the localities of Salgueiro and Caldeliñas, the two of Verín's municipality. Though in a beginning to his construction and exploitation it depended on a private company, in 1817 (year from what they begin the records of the antiquarian) passes to be an ownership of Verín's municipality. In 1859 it was declared of public usefulness, in order that hundred years later (in 1960) it stops working. The waters with those who if they were bathing those who hitherto were coming are of the fracture Corga, that the waters the most fluoraded waters of Europe. Monterrei is rich in waters, since in 94 km2 that has the region, there are 6 fountains of mineral water.

The most ancient documents were very damaged, due to the bad documentation and little professionalization of the owner of the files. Turning the pages little by little because of in some of the documents the ink made eliminate the paper, it is possible to see an account book with income and expenses, the budget items that the mayor was attributing him, an inventory of personal property, report of which should have used as book of visits, medical documents as those who were going to the resort to do them n affected of some strange cutaneous disease for which they had many tickets .
But the really interesting thing is that if they were preserving many of the tickets. These tickets were smaller than a current sheet of paper, in a paper with a smooth surface. They were headed by a name and it was followingby a chart with space for dates and treatments. If a client had more of one they were sewed slow of small book in the first years, already the last ones that if they preserve were stuck.

Manuel Blanco Romasanta was a very habitual client of Caldeliñas's aquiferous establishment. He would know the resort in one of the times that spent on the way to Laza in order to contribute the epistolary correspondence of the dead relatives that he itself was writing not to raise suspicions. Going to Chaves (Portugal), to 8 Km (5 miles) of Verín, to provide with goods.

The find is of such a magnitude, that I did not assimilate everything that there I saw. For bigger surprise, the dates were coincidental with that Romasanta confessed to kill the poor women that were reaching him.

Let's remember his way of proceeding in the crime:
Romasanta knew well the women that he killed, with that it was not difficult to convince them for a supposed prosperous future. He was speaking to them about a work that he found, normally in Santander, and he offered himself, previous payment, to do it of carrier. Once started the trip, when passing for San Mamede's Mountain, was coming to his unexpected end, murdering them with bloody methods.
For not being discovered, Manuel Blanco was staying away from those places where they knew it the days of rigor that was demanding the logic of the trip to Santander, and when finally he was appearing, was doing it carrying letters of which already he had killed, where they were speaking about their new and prosperous life.

It can only be demonstrated that these periods of absence them was taking advantage of the Sacauntos to take a few baths in the tepid waters to 24 ºC (75,20 ºF) of Caldeliñas, where, as if nothing had happened, he would had rest for the following victim, washing skin and conscience, and the one who knows, trying to treat of his "evil".
The antiquarian does not leave me reproduces the documents, for that once transcribed the information to my notebook of notes, I go away, satisfied of that, little by little, if they are peeling the lagoons of the case Romasanta, approaching the person and to his way of proceeding.


Caldeliñas' Resort location

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Historical Provincial File again

I already had received answer of the direction of Ourense's Historical Provincial File, today I went there to photograph the documents that there I thought the day that I came to Ourense.

I was received by the assistant director, a high and very educated young man, who without stopping of distant being was showing his amiability gradually. He invited me to go on to the entrails of the file while one was warning that there nobody enters except the civil servants.

I smell it file it became more present in that stay. I arranged everything to do photo and the assistant director offered in several occasions to help myself with the photographic instruments. Nicely he lignited the light when I asked for him while he was asking the fence of the processes of apprehension of the digital chambers.
For when I had finished already I had a review of books with heraldic shields of ourensans families to appear. He was speaking with the biggest passion that he can put him to the work.

Before saying goodbye, I talked to an investigator who was hidden behind a heap of books. We were talking a lot of time, and he gave me information, that it will be true; I will get soon news about this investigation.

When I went out of the file, I was returning had the hands crammed with these almost imperceptible small crystals that if they detach of the oxidation of the iron gall ink.

The tracks of Romasanta

Nowdays it does not turn out easy at all re-compose the ways that Romasanta crossed once in his trips, not only to commit murders, but manny that walked and he revised to go of village in village selling his goods.
Is not necessary to say that the roads of this country did not exist at that time, and if you try to compose the tracks according to the testimonies of Romasanta himself, you will run up suddenly with rivers or mountains, highways or wild forest forests.

In the middle of 1800 all the families were possessing a huge patrimony of cattle, it is easy to imagine that the mounts would be more walked than they are today. Nowdays the number of heads of cattle is anecdotal, and even when they garther a good number don’t take them very far from the house to feed them , sometimes do not even take out them of the corrals, feeding them on forage.

Eufemia Montes, a neighbor who today lives in Quintá (Chandrexa de Queixa), but she was born in the Ferreiría, when ask her about Redondela by certain homesick:

“Ai, querido!, como non vou saber onde está a Redondela?, por desgracia funche ben veces alí, querido. Cun bo rabaño de cabras ou ovellas, porque as vacas non che rachaban*. Ía ata de ben meniña que non che podía nin coas calzas. A Redondela... que Deus a leve... déixaa estar. Catro veces che fun antes de emigrar para a Alemaña... usted enténdeme?...”

“Oh, darling!, how can I not know where is to the Redondela?, unfortunately I
was many times there, darling. With a good number of goats or sheeps, because
the cows do not cross. I was going even very young, so young that I could not
with the shoes. The Redondela... that God takes her ...leave to be. I was four
times before emigrating for to Germany ... do you understand me? ..."

Today there is not a road which crosses San Mamede's Mountain and Vilar de Barrio locality like Rebordechao with those of Montederramo as Mazaira or Fontedoso, and much less that it goes near to Redondela or of the Gorbias, as Romasanta would say in the confession to the justice. Always San Mamede's Mountain, is like an uncrossable door, which today it is necessary to cross doing lots of kilometers.

In fact the narrow roads that they bifurcate of the one that goes of Montederramo to villages as remote as Quintá or Santa Cruz (already in Chandrexa de Queixa's municipality) and that take the traveling salesman face Mazaira and Fontedoso one, and to Gabín other one, have its end in the last street of these villages.

There are almost no inhabitants in these villages that they know if it existed once these ways. In villages like Fontedoso (to 2,1 km from the detour up mentioned) it stays only a couple of Portuguese that came hier to to work of householders three years ago, and that to the death of their owner decided to stay " to take care " of properties of the deceased.

In the villages as Ferreiría, in Chandrexa de Queixa's Municipality, only remain two elders that with the years took the memory. In this village, according to Eufemia Montes's declarations a path was going out to Redondela, but nowadays there is not a road that communicates Ferreiría with the rest of the civilization!

If some of the old roads are preserved, today revoked in roads of double rail that join Rebordechao's zone (where Romasanta was residing) with Laza (where were from the two victims).

Until to the administrative division changed in this province, today, populations who once were the most populated, and judicial county capital or the capitals of the municipality, today are at the edge of the abyss of the abandon. It is Edrada's case, where he remains a neighbor, and that was the administrative capital of the Val do Conso, ownership that today Vilariño. Suspiazo's case (village that was staying for Romasanta's roads) between Rebordechao (Vilar de Barrio) and Montederramo, which today it belongs to Montederramo's municipality, of that one was a part of the domains of the mayor of Chandrexa de Queixa.

And there is a handicap more which I did not count. This province is crammed with Dams!, I have to admit that I was too American, and, being fed up with they being seen imprisoned from the roads that I am traveling in the last days, at all time I thought that they were lakes.

The presas were constructed all in the 20th century under the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco that the fratricidal war of 1936 put to the forehead of Spain. These reservations of water that were producing and they produce big quantities of energy (more of the one that can consume the whole province) they overwhelmed not only the ways that were outlining the mosaic of the archaic infrastructures of this country, but entire villages as Camba, or Alberguería, which of assurance the Sacauntos was visiting with the cluster of his work.

The Redondela and the Gorbias, the sceneries of the crime

To kill it time, leaving behind the college I approached up to the villages for that Romasanta sold the hardware. I do again the testimony about that they spoke in the judgment against him, it was here where he was selling the properties of which he was murdering as cloths of sedates, jewelry or same skirts that were taking putting in the moment of the death.

Whom I find I ask for A Redondela, another place that the mayor could not say to me, and deservedly, so he rests in the domains of Chandrexa de Queixa's municipality. It(he,she) was in Quintá's village where they say with whom showed it to me.

The Redondela it was the second scene of Romasanta's crime, not very far from the Gorbias, in the same Mountains, where he gave end to Manuela García Blanco's life and that of his daughter Petra and more that of the small Maria Dores Rúa.

As if they will imagine there was located so distantly and steeply that I had to conform to the panoramic sight.

In the mount, they will say what they should want, but the vehicles of double traction resemble to have less stability than a flamingo with stormy winds.
It was during half an hour that I was calling with the head in the roof, but worth the effort all The Gorbias: an enormous virgin trees, copper hills in that thousands grow of acibros in the shade of the birches.
I never was in other one. The richness they have with suc environment, said to me the mayor (with whom I spoke enough), is not appreciate by the vicinity.
Really it resembles that nobody passes there . There is not any human trace, and the vegetation is so dense that explains because Romasanta chose this emplacement to attack.

I felt for the first time closely to Romasanta, as if still circulating the smell of the blood of his victims for the narrow tracks, avoiding the birches. Nothing is i known of the form in which he was murdering the victims, because of little interest of the justice of the epoch, which was answering more to the volunteer of it convict condemned that when the facts dawn from the transparency and the seriousness that if he supposes him to the judicial administration. It seems to be clear that nowadays, a similar history would fill tabloids, books, análisises and all kinds of inquiries.SWe know little of Manuel Blanco: which evil spirit was leading him, which was the modus operandi, and in what conditions he, was committing the murders.


The sceneries of the crime

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Montederramo, the death of the legend.

Conscious of having a long day ahead, I approach to the same cafe of every morning in order that on having entered, the waiter surrounded with beveled crystals and coarse figures kitsch of ceramics, agrees with the soft down eyelids. Without having to ask for nothing, comes without delays with my luncheon of diary. It is seen that you can not have a morning whim...

I follow the road. I notice that I do not have turn on the Mr. Antón, It. looks llike I will be able to go, since I have learned up to every curve, which they are not small.
It could not be differently, the detour to Montederramo is an impossible way for two cars. The first space car to be able to park it presides at huge monastery, Montederramo Santa Maria, an important Renaissance complex of the year 1.124, according to his its foundational document.
This time I chase two important points of the Sacauntos life: The Gorbias and the Redondela. Without losing time in the walkers, I approach up to the town hall. I am surprised of seeing two civil servants, and the disposition of the own mayor to attend to the queu of the citizenship.

The Gorbias it is a place located in an equidistant point between the lands of Vilar de Barrio and Montederramo, in San Mamede's mountains. The dice which I have are the declarations that the own Romasanta did to both two Audiences (Allariz and A Coruña): a shaded, crammed place of trees, and that is not far very much from one supposition road that communicated Rebordechao (Vilar de Barrio and Fontedoso or Gabín, already in another face of the mountain, inside Montederramo's boundaries.

This other day in Rebordechao, to my question, they had not hesitated to point the far hill, assuring that there were The Gorbias, but advise me that had been better to go from Montederramo if I did not want to lose me in the mount. Like that how I had in several occasions the opportunity to shot with the camera the outeiral, but always as some kind of inaccessible place, The Gorbias were like playing with me , as if they had known that one could not see a simple tree. Nobody could assure me where was placed with accuracy, but I knew myself increasingly nearby. It. was as if the place had remained closed forever from middle of the nineteenth-century being afraid that some secular tree could have revealed there happened.

Thankfully, Antonio Rodríguez, besides being a mayor of Montederramo is woodkeeper, he knows every point of the mounts that there come together there.

After pointing out The Gorbias in a street directory, he formulated the interesting offer of doing me of driver up to there. Apparently there is no way of going if is not with a car of traction to four wheels. But it would be for the late afternoon, when finishes the mayor's day starts the watchman of the mountain.

During the rest of the morning I visited the monastery. Part of it is dedicated as a school. When I saw the boys I could not suppress the desires of asking him if they knew the Man of the Grease. But, as well as the major ones know all of his existence in these lands, in the college only I found negative answers.
Since I occupied good report of the playtime the answer upbringing, the director of the center achegóuseme for was tried(meant) by what was walking to planning. Minutes later he made a formal invitation in order that a conference gave to the boys the fence of the life and Romasanta's "work", which I accepted.

During the speech, I tried to create an environment distended to foment participation, this way it was how I obtained that Breixo Soutomaior, a small blond boy with the bluest eyes that I had ever seen before start with the monologue:

“Érache un homón malo ás sabendas [...] collía cas mulleres cara á Serra e xa nada delas se volvía saber [...] el andar andouche a vivir para alá dun ano ou máis na Cova da Serra [...] Á fin pillárono os carabineiros. No cárcere non lle daban de comer, e rematou por levalo a Morte.”

" He was a bad man [...] he was taking women towards Serra and already nothing
of them if she) was returning to know [...] he was living for there of one year
or more in the Cave of the Mountain [...] the police plundered it from the fin.
In the jail they were not feeding him, and he ended for the Death taking it."

None of them the part of Heather had heard before speaking about a like that history, possibly for the overprotection that they suffer the kids, separating them of any history that could be a reason of the spoilt infantile traumas of Freudian.


Montederramo location

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Housing and supply of goods.

Visiting the historical files of the provinces in which Manuel Blanco Romasanta could wonder, sometimes it is not a work they go.

According to the documents consulted of the box 1086/Albergues in the Historical Provincial File of León, situated in the square Puerta Castillo, such a Manuel Blanco R., it was put several times in the one that had been a lodging of pilgrims of Carracedelo in León. In concrete May 22, 1839, June 25, 1841, and in January, 1842.

It is no possible to contrast that was Romasanta, but the coincidences are many and not only for the name which appears I will say that these facts place between the widowhood (1834) and the case of someone of León (, justly when Romasanta begins with his hardware dealer's trade and before there had turned out to be murdered someone who was taking an order of search against him. In the same epoch, Manuel Blanco, was approaching with certain asiduidade Ponferrada to be supplied of goods in the trade of Alonso and Sardinian then to sell them in Ourense. So much that he accumulated a debt of 600 coins ( reais) , motive for which someone was looking for it.

Carracedelo is a passing place for the pilgrims that from near 2.000 years, and probably also a long before the Christianization that had suffered this land by the Romans. The pilgrims come from any Europe’s place walking up to Santiago de Compostela, and his its cathedral, in which the legend says there rest the remains of the apostle Santiago, an important personality of the catholic church. Some historians and writers affirm that Europe was constructed travelling to Santiago de Compostela.

The “Camiño de Santiago” (Santiago´s road) is crammed with lodgings for pilgrims. Today the hotels abound, but in the middle of the 19th century the pensions were depending on the clergy, and were giving put those who were peregrinating Compostela.


The monastery of Santa María of Carracedo that Romasanta knew is today in ruinous condition. The first stones date of the 10th century, though it had later reforms in the XIIth and XIVth century. The part restored in 1988 is today a museum. The beauty of this monastic building would not pass unnoticed for Romasanta, which was so accustomed to the places of worship.

Like in other occasions, I complain about the silent condition of the stones, which so much might count. Romasanta would pass totally unnoticed among the thousands of pilgrims who here were passing a year, and probably he was just what wanted.


The night receives Ponferrada. It is a city of approximately 70.000 inhabitants of modern urban development planning that placed roundabout in every crossing. The small houses of the boundaries of the city are changing into high buildings the more to the center If you goes. It is a city marked by the history of the Templars and that grew in the shade of a majestic castle that it dates of the 11th century.

I am strange in such an urban environment after these days, probably the Romasanta happened to him the same, since he calls the attention that only if he had reached to the cities to be supplied of goods (so much here like in Chaves, Portugal).

The natural habitat where he felt comfort were the villages, surely he dominated of the situation all the time.


Some days ago I wrote to the Institute of Studies Bercianos to investigate for the location of the trade Alonso & Sardo who existed in the decade of the 30 of the 19th century, and so well he that knew the Sacamanteigas. The answer was positive, he was in the street of the clock, where the craftsmen were selling handmade things, in fact like that it is indicated by the names of the parallel streets (Butcher's shops, Oil-shops ...)

The (calle del reloj) street of the Clock starts in the Square of the Municipality up to the own castle and passes under the Arch of Eras situated in the unique tower that is part of the wall of the Middle Ages. Today it is places were the youngs go to have fun and there abound the places of night leisure.
The excursion comes to your end and of return for Ourense I digress on the quantity of miles that Romasanta was crossing, and the time that would take the trip to him between Ponferrada and A ermida (The Hermitage).


Monastery "Santa María of Carracedo"

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Ponferrada location
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Rebordechao, the contact with the vicinity

For the same road, where I went to the Hermitage, I continue to the forehead, and little later I meet Rebordechao.
The village receives me with a fountain that throws cold water, even with the high temperature of the environment. Sat next to this one I observe while as Rebordechao's daily life, before I enter in scene the vicinity is already revolutionized as had passed in Regueiro.

Rebordechao is one these villages frozen in the time and overstocked by the oblivion, being the biggest of that I visited even of it has neither a road of ignition nor the minimal services of whichmust arrange a community of these dimensions. The time is very slow here. The inhabitants of Rebordechao walk little by little, without hurry, as if the world had not turned, unconcerned of the threat of the Sun of finishing with the day.
The sustenance of life here is not bases in the currency, but performs vital importance the climatology, since they feed of that they sow or of the animals that produce, without them to be absent of nothing, as Tomás assures Base It, a major man, who left the memory to the return of the emigration to France. Probably because of it they measure the times according to the works of the estate that go of station on station, from the sowing of the potato to the harvest, from the childbirth of the cow to the carrion of the apples; and not of as in as. This does that they speak threading slowly the verbal ones, that every step that they give resembles that the heavy feet drag and even that the time to eat is one of most prolonged of the day.

In this village, since in the previous ones calls powerfully the attention for lack of upbringing and youth that augurs an apocalyptic future for the proper village.

The relation with the animals is daily, and the relation that they have with them is almost of dependence, or better, of symbiosis. These relations are perfectly nested, and the one that they support with the cows’ places in the summit of the pyramid, and in the base of this one, the animals that somewhere call of company.

This we can see in the deal that dispenses to the dogs or to the cats that sustain in order that they do his work: looking and hunting mice respectively because of it is that there do not receive any sample of caress on the part of the owners they put name. Nevertheless the cows have name, and some up to surname, the owners always are dependent on them and are connoisseurs of the details of the genealogical history of the tree.
The rivers go down limpid and crystalline so much that the neighbors drink from the river Arnoia stooping to its side as if they had been dogs.

The narrow streets call to the disorientation. There abound also in this village the corridor and galleries that are hanging of a side to other one of the streets communicating the houses, demonstrating the cold winters in which the neighbors go across of the village without having to go out tread on snow.

I crushed Rebordechao's tranquility with my presence and more the peddler, with the claxon of his car, in which he brings fresh food to sell. Suddenly I have a flash-back and my mind travels one century and a half behind to see the interaction between the seller Romasanta and the people who bought. The fact that today the simple presence of the seller supposes a great riot, it confirms that Romasanta was well-known for all the populations for the one that was passing.

The deal of the dealing is not in plane of equality. The seller has amiability in excess, so much that boiling the condescension and the villagers speak to him with certain inferiority, accepting the quantity for that he asks of good degree, conscious of that if not return, probably they could not return to eat fish. Now I understand the privileges which Romasanta had, the valued he was, and the confidence that they were depositing in him.

When already if I have close to me a good percentage of the inhabitants of Rebordechao, the questions happen for both bands and with every response that I give they are forming my profile.
Once overcome the distrust that I provoke in those of Rebordechao, I begin to speaking with them about the history that occupies us. They tell that the wolves are in the habit of advancing in the cattle often, than two months ago entered the wolves for cattle.
Of the “O Home do Unto” (Man of the Grease), is like there called him, It is told that he was escaping with the young women for the Cordillera, and that there was killing them.

Bieito Louro, is of the local most major, says that he(she) still has little and that to the part of his cows, he wants to leave him to his descent, which is in Switzerland, histories as this one:

“Foi unha moza de aquí a que descubriu o engano do Romasanta. Ela éralle ben avispada, pero conseguina levar cara á Serra. "O do Unto" estaba a cocer un pote alá arriba (sinalando cara á maxestuosa Serra de San Mamede). Él deixoulle dito que de ningún xeito levantara a tapa da ola, pero a moza aproveitou un descoido do do Unto e levantou o testo. Entón veulle a morte ós ollos cando viu que na auga que fervía a cachón flotaba a man dunha muller, e co mesmo guindouse monte abaixo que parecía lume...”

"She was a young woman of here the one that discovered the deception of the Romasanta. She was clever, but he managed to take her towards to Serra. “That of the Grease” was cooking a boat there (pointing towards the great San Mamede Mountain). He mentioned that no way had raised the lid of the pot!, but the young woman took advantage of a carelessness of that of the Grease and raised the cover. Then came the death to the eyes when she saw that in the water was boiling it was floating a hand of a woman, and with the same one mount threw itself below that was looking like a fire... "

Two women who were walking chasing a cat in the search of its babies, while one of them was weaving with their hands a sock with the wool of her sheeps, they speak about the history with certain objection.

“Aquí non se sabe nada diso, iso é un invento da televisión. Claro que nos dicían de pequenas “Coidado que ven o do Unto” pero iso era coma quen di o “home do saco” ou así, só era para acougalas crianzas, para que foramos a durmir e non estiveramos nas brincadeiras todo o día”

“Here nobody knows anything of it; it is an invention of the television. Clear that they were saying to us of small "Taken care that they see that of the Grease" but it was as whom the "bogey-man" says or this way, only it was to calm upbringing, in order that we had been to sleeping and had not been in the games the whole day"

After passing hours in Rebordechao, turned back to Ourense, leaving behind this subworld that there hides the history of lycanthropy more interesting of which if it could write.


Rebordechao on the map

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A Ermida, the refuge

I eat very fast the breakfast s with the pillow marked in the cheek. It is a task impossible to find a free buffet for breakfast in Ourense, just some fruits of season, but I have to conform me to what they serve in the cafe of the street parallel to the pension, though it is not exactly a vegetarian luncheon.

Guided by the Mr. Antón for a similar route in the beginning to the previous day I come to Vilar de Barrio town hall, to ask where A Ermida (The Hermitage) is. A Ermida perhaps is a place in which nobody there lived ever, and for this they me warn it in the Municipality. That is the reason because of it that is not visible for Google Maps, not for Mr. Antón.


The first one that called my attention of A Ermida is that it is not like I had imagined. All the references that I found about it was that it was a set of constructions done to guard the cattle of those of Rebordechao

When judging the constructions I dare to say that they were done to live in them, since they have the typical structure of the housings of the villages of Ourense's interior. Down with big door for the entry of the cattle and at the first floor with corridor and principal door and windows. But the first floor has no divisions, which demonstrates that they were not designed for big stays, more I dare to say, that judging by the capacity of saving and austerity that there have the neighbors of these lands, resources would not reject in the construction of these sheds if they had not been to live in them. It is possible that only the shepherd of the family had slept there thinking of the cows in the days in which the snow was not stopping to graze the herbivorous ones in Rebordechao, a kind of refuge to escape of the cold that goes in Rebordechao, that though only it’s far 3 km (1,90 miles) the difference of height and temperature is notable.

A Ermida speaks low. The tranquility that had always did not teach him to shout, because of it not if they can hear the secrets that enclose the stones that close the fences or that shape the corrals. The vegetation that growth with certain discretion in the narrow streets of the part of above rapid passing of the years denote without the human presence. Nevertheless, down, in what you see from the road it is possible to observe how still they continue using some sheds to keep hens. It. looks that in a house there was a commune of squatters living through some summer season.

In one of the meadows they graze calmly a heap of solitary cows, with the unique shepherding of a device that closes the area that of penetrating it they would receive one overturned electricity company, but that not if they dare to approaching. My presence troubles them enough, and they make me notice their edginess.
I initiate to trying something, do not be that. Probably some track, something that makes me understand better the way of life that here Romasanta spent. I initiate to photograph and walk around the surrounding areas.

It is amazing to see how sprouts the water of the soil forming creeks for all the sides. It is clear that if Michigan is the state of thousand lakes, this is the country of thousand rivers.

When I go up to the street with the absorbed look in every construction, thinking which of them would give I shelter the Romasanta think abreast with a man that I scared enough. It was a woodkeeper that was monitoring possible attempts of fires. It was not natural of there with the one that had not even idea of Romasanta's stay in that enclave.

The narrow ways and my curiosity invite me to enter the corrals. Some of them had devices of tillage of wood, one was sheltering a tractor, others were crammed with sacks of fertilizers, and all with a common denominator: abundances of straw and fleas.

But in one of them I am several minutes doing photos. I find several peel of animals hung on the walls of the first one to walk. Of wolf, of fox, of cow, and of horse. Cut as an apron, trousers or simply a hood, all completed with strips of leather and buckle to be fixed to the body.
According to my inquiries some years ago these peels were very typical in the areas of Ourense's mountain to be protected from the cold.


Of assurance he was in the habit of wrapping up with these peel in the cold winters of the Hermitage, probably he was seen during the night wearing them and probably of there is where the whole history comes.Before I could notice already the fleas had advanced their parasitism in me making me stop working to return to Vilar de Barrio to the chemist.


The Ermida location

See A Ermida, the refuge en in a bigger map

As a prologue III (The Prisoner)

Under construction

As a prologue II (The Wolf)

Under construction

As a prologue I (The Man)

Under construction

Esgos or the child Manuel

Taking hold the lost hours I run towards the car. In spite of being a warm day, crosses my skin an amount of shivers that make me dress jacket. I touch the "on" to the Mr. Antón asking him the way to Esgos (my destination is Reguerio, but Mr. Antón does not know where I is) and I finish the route, like years ago did the one Who I am looking for.
The road looks new, it is possible that it is the same that Romasanta used, but the caps of tar were changed through the passing years, obtaining a road of three or four rails in some sections. The populations who border on the distance are relatively new judging by the constructions, it sees that here it happens like in the USA, and the people are located next to the road links.
There is an important dispersion and the houses are mixed with the pastures and the walnuts.
When I park in Esgos' center, there is a tranquility proper of a postpandemic quarantine. It is a small village crossed by the road where I was coming, that splits in two the small population. In the bar “O lugar” (The Place) there are four teenagers forgeting the hours entertained with a board game. I ask for Regueiro, and a young woman, Lucía, offers herself to accompany me, this way she is that she gets into the car and directs me.


When I tell her that I am going to visit the church of Holy Eulalia de Esgos, make me change direction, because of I realized that it used to be closed, but She knows who has the keys. The "night watchwoman" is Ms. Carme, which does the functions of maintenance and cleanliness of the church. She is a widow, old but always ready to help, lives in A Lama (a kind of neighborhood of Esgos a bit far from the city center) with the house full of religious imagery with these typical images of a religion quasi polytheistic
While I think about the simplicity of getting there, and in the predisposition to help that they have the Esgos habitants, Lucía looks for me, probably she is thinking what strange it turns out to be the situation. She tells me that when she was small they threatened her with the “Home do Unto” (Man of the Grease) when she was behaving badly... Ms. Carme says to me that she cannot open the church` door to strangers, that I have to speak with D. Teófilo because of he is the titular parson of Esgos, and give me a handwriting paper on which the telephone number of the parson is written, I had time me to thinking about a possible negative response of Teófilo when already was saying one to me yes with a tired voice, sign of the passed years. Seconds later I was on the way accompanied by two women. It does not seem that the histories of the Sacauntos that they listenes during their childness deeped so much judging by the confidence that they award a complete stranger.


The church of Santa Eulalia de Esgos is a church as many others, with the particularity that here there was baptized the child Manuel Blanco Romasanta.
I photograph what I want under to attentive look of the neighbors of Esgos, who measure every step that I give, they speak between them, and they stare at me when I speak for the mobile in English. Ms. Carme invites me to visit all the stays of the church, even the ones which can not be visited. Ms. Carme enumerates the reforms that the temple suffered since she has use of reason and assures that the pile of baptism, though it changed of place continues being to same of always, though I say to her that It resembles quite young.


Once finished the work, I deposit again the women where I gathered them respectively. On the way back to the temple to photograph it externally I see Esgos's cemetery. I could not suppress desire of entering. It is amazing to see how there are many of graveyards property of Romasantas and of Blancos.
I walk around the church. How many times Manuel Blanco's feet would tread on this leafy area? In the porch of the church there is also a small cemetery that perhaps is a custom of hereabouts, in it also abounds the surname of the Sacamanteigas.


Again I sit down in the car, you cannot imagine the narrow one of these ways. They are so narrow that one of the wheel mark is marked out, in the grass of the road. Anyway I have to go ahead because of that I cannot come back.

Sometimes the casualities seem to be written in the book that we bring on when we born. Before I managed to get back I find, just in front of me a road sign on which is written "Soutelo". This locality is where the young man Romasanta found a woman with who married in the church that I visited previously. The few neighbors of the village do not know anything of the real history, only parts from the legend, probably by the shame that provokes that the killer had been marry there, because of this it was erased of the collective memory. In exchange for doing a question to him (her) I have to answer some fence of my origin and what was bringing me up to Soutelo.


Regueiro is quite close to Soutelo, for the same road where the church is.
Regueiro sow how Romasanta grew. It is a small village, habitated only for two persons. Distrust contrasts with the attitude of the Esgos and A Lama. You know little of the history of Romasanta if not for what he said when was small "The man of the grease will come and take you" and what they see on the national television channel.
Regueiro has three streets: a circular one and other two that divide this circle in three. Most of the houses are in very bad conditions because of the passage of time. Here they have many months of cold and dampness as that the constructions have galleries and corridors cross from one side of the street to the other doing of Regueiro a complicated labyrinth.
For the streets does not pass a car, since they are designed only for the cattle. The houses have just one floor, where in the low one they were sheltering the cattle, and above they were doing life the families. I try myself to imagine the hard Romasanta's childhood, the received education, and the relations with the neighbors that for sure marked him to end Up in the psychological disorder that he suffered years later.
Once back I stop to make a photo of a scarecrow, and I see a man who is sowing corn. Here they only use the corn for feed pigs; Eat it roasts like is done in America looks like to them a heresy.
The farmer is called Pepe Romasanta, and at the question of if he knows history of the Sacaúntos anwers that “is part of the family ", but it is an answer that he never investigated. He can not demonstrate the family precedents. Pepe Romasanta has approximately 60 years, and confesses semiilliterate.
He tells the legends that he could have listened during his life, and maybe he could remember for being an imagined relative and, is because of it for what he speaks about him with certain fondness:

"The Sacauntos, or Sacamanteigas, calls him as you like, was more clever than a
garlic (Galician saying, which means to be very clever).At that time he could read and write. He was as shrewd as a fox, smaller than this hoe, but quite strong . He had face of wolf, he was shaggy and ugly so much that I had not wanted to see him in a dark night [...] It is said that wondered trough the moutain, Caves, there together with San Pedro, was living in the caves with the mouros , in the times of the war, but he was not going with these people. He was pleasing with new young women, but he was very shy..."

“O Sacauntos, ou Sacamanteigas, chámalle como queiras, era un home máis listo ca un allo. Seica xa daquela sabía ler e escribir. Era astuto coma unha zorra, pequenote que non avultaba máis ca este sacho, pero ben forte. Tiña cara de lobo, era peludo e feo que non quixera eu velo na noite pecha [...] Din que andou fuxido polo monte, nas Covas, aí a carón de San Pedro, estibo vivindo nas covas cos mouros, nos tempos da guerra, pero el non se levaba con esa xente. Gostaba das mozas novas, máis era moi apoucadiño...”

In his story is not easy to separated reality from fiction. He gives erroneous information. He names the civil war that suffered this country in 1939, mentioning those who were escaping of the Franco`s regime, assuring that they lived with Romasanta. It could have been a nice history, but the times of the war are far (hundred years) to the time when the Sacamanteigas scaped from the justice.
I say goodbye, the Sun is bordering already the horizon and s I must go to San Pedro de Rocas (Saint's Peter of Rocks) monastery, also in Esgos's municipality.
Manuel Blanco Romasanta knew well this monastery. Here he spent long time, scaped of the law or because of the special friendship that had with the assistant of the abbot of this church.
San Pedro of Rocks resembles to be climbing up a solitary mount in a perfect balance that gives the geometric pieces of stone and the rounded carvings in the rock in equal parts that shape its architecture.

The anthropomorphic sarchofag carved in the rock (probably for this motive still existing today). The temple is abandonned, opened to any visitor. Undoubtedly has many for its singular beauty.Inside the temple crammed with sarcophagi there is not so much light, and the stones seem to keep the secular fear that the Sacaúntos spread for every corner of this province, I confess that the throttler was late in closing, to get in the car and to return to the city.


See Esgos. Romasanta child in a bigger map

Ourensan smile

The one who signs below, titles like that this post, for the overflowing amiability of the citizens ourensans.
Before the alarm clock could have done its work I already was under the rain, and I was impatient to know the place that saw grow to the small Manuel B. Romasanta. Very early, when almost Ourense didn’t awake I was going towards the AHPO to deliver the credentials to be able photograph the documents. The director was not yet, therefore the photographic work will have to stay for another day.
Before going towards the place of birth of the Sacauntos I had to pass for the County council to ask about Xosé Domínguez's book which already I spoke to you " The man of the grease ( O home do unto), Blanco Romasanta, history of a legend " because of it is exhausted in Internet, and in the ourensans bookshops as well. In the service of publications they confirm me that it exhausted soon after its last edition, but that I can find a copy in the Library of the Deputation. There, I direct myself with not so much enthusiasm, since everything what I could find already is published in the net.
Again I am very surprised with the amount of civil servants’ that exists in the public and official services. Several care takers direct me up to the surrounding areas of the library in the third floor, there seven women exchange commentaries among themselves until I enter in scene. I introduce my self and make clear that I am investigating, and, automatically, they begin to look for information in the computerized bibliographical file, while they invite me to go in to the Investigators' Room. Still I had not had time of getting accommodated and they started to bringing me books.

A heap of them I rejected them after reading the title because they were of mythology. I took some notes of psychology books ... and at the end came to me what I wanted, with blue covers and with Romasanta's photofit picture. They me brought also others that I already had obtained from USA as of Ed. Nigratrea that goes for title(degree) " Manuel(a) Blanco Romasanta, the killer hombre lobo " (2007) Xosé Ramon Mariño Ferro. (“Manuel(a) Blanco Romasanta, o lobishome asasino”)When there was fully absorbed in the reading enter into the room the director of the library, Mª Isabel Almuíña, to ask for the treatment that her companions were distributing me , but with the aim to know whom was I what I was doing there. When I told it to her. , there was such the emotion that produced to her to know that an institution like the Lycan Foundation was investigating a ourensano case that gave me the book that so much I needed.

Rest and preparation of permissions

The duration of the luminous and bluish hours of Galiza and the humid ones of Michigan deserve commentary. Here there is the Sun up to 22.00 hours!!
Nevertheless, Ourense dawns well early. For the thin crystals of two centuries ago crosses the noise that generates only 5 hours after closing the market. I was not whom of me to get up. The Weariness I have is a mixture between jet lag and drunkenness of the world of the Sacamanteigas.
When I could open eyes completely and extract me Algonkians feet to the street, on the market already was left that others reject. This market is very traditional, remind me those that I saw a few periods ago in Thailand. There is sold all kinds of foodstaffs, some news for me. The shopkeepers are rough and offer the products like who scream for surviving.
I used the whole morning in doing steps. I phoned to George Myssachusets, the President of the Lycan Foundation, in order to get a supporting certificate to be able to realize photos in the AHPO, telephoned Carme Prieto, Director(Principal) of the File of the Kingdom of Galicia, for the same motive, and then I came to an office of tourist information and I got a map street, maps of the province, to be able to do an itinerary for the places where Romasanta was.
In this office filled me with flyers that publicize the thermal baths. Ourense is crammed with sources of which sprouts warm water, and her history is related to the caldaria baths, that already in 1700 are registered places of baths of public access to the purest style of the Turkish Haman. Later I will contribute myself to taking a thermal bath, to re-put forces for the long day of tomorrow, which perhaps it will bring good news.

The first discovery.

But the great find of today were not going to be the documents of the court (that by another band are transcribed almost in its entirety in the net).
I ask about the files preserved in a nineteenth-century jails of the city, concretly of “Cárcere da Coroa” (Jail of the Crown) which was constructed by the order of the Bishop Juan Muñoz de la Cueva in 1717-28, and that worked until ends of the 19th century; and the " Royal Jail " of the architect Francisco Martin Vidal and It was finished in 1837, but used from 1843.*
The staff bring me a small glossary, and I see that the years 1850, 1851 and 1852 are missing. They assure me that this lack is due to the action of the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, that they dedicated part of his their regime to destroy inconvenient files among other things. But in the documents of 1853 I find among the rounded letters Manuel Blanco Romasanta's record in a kind of prisoners' list of the Jail of the Crown, but the bad luck is that his name is not going to appear in any more prison records.
I request them then a digital copy, which they deliver me previous payment of a few rates, and then I ask them to leave me to do a photography to the documents, but the answer is negative and they deliver me a request that I have to direct to the director of the Archieve, but it will be tomorrow...

* “A cidade de Ourense. Unha visión a través dos séculos.” (Ourense's city. A vision across the centuries.) Olga Gallego Domínguez. Bulletin Auriense. annex 27. Archaeological Provincial Museum. 2001.

Ourense and the Ourense's Historical Provincial File (AHPO)

Ourense seems to be frozen in the time of the Sacamanteigas. The small streets squares and the cathedral of the center resembles not to have changed since Romasanta, the Sacamanteigas entered in the jail of this city in August, 1852.
The ouresan heat contrasts strongly with my cloth, since though I found out about the climatology in the network, it is not easy to pass from the 44,6 ºF (7 ºC) of yesterday at these hours, in Michigan, to 85 (29,5) of Ourense.
The people are kinds when one asks them on the street, and a lady of medium age, very made up, offered to accompany me from the Major Plaza up to Ourense's Historical Provincial File (AHPO), which is in the building of the Arqueological Museum of Ourense, that had just left my left side, but on the part of behind.
This file smells as all. You can notice how the powder enters in your nose grain by grain. The smell is a mixture of dampness and old paper in unstoppable long decomposition sometimes for the acids of the ink that it supports. (There is a curious sentence to which is submitted the paper of the historical documents). The Building is very big, and they tell me that it belonged to a high cargo of the Catholic Church, here it had deep roots. But the space dedicated to the files is rather small judging by the heaps of books from the soil to the roof that they overstock the receiver.
In the second one to walk there are seven civil servants decked of white dressing-gown who with my presence are distributed immediately by the Room of Consultation.
In the second floor there are seven civil servants decked of white dressing who with my presence are distributed immediately by the Room of Consultation.
The room is like others: shelves of former books, big tables with only a chair in each one, and many pencils and no pen.
Still now, after 6 hours checking documents I have the hands full of these brilliant particles that are in the paper because of the processes of degradation of the ink.
When they invite me to sit down, I show them the accreditation of the Lycan Foundation, that without so much interest gave it back to me. Then I request the Box 8938, finding out that my Portuguese is more oxidized than I believed.
The civil servants work in a silent way, is as if they had been contagious of the sorrow of the centuries of the files that they keep and custody, and it is what made them conceive the time in fractions different from the citizens of the studding of narrow sidewalks of down.
When already the hands of the restlessness tremble to see, to touch, to read and smell the papers that once were in Manuel Blanco Romasanta's presence, they open the box to me on a big empty table to discover that the documents of the " Cause 1788 of the wolf-man of 1852" were not there. After a brief search for other bordering boxes, for my frustration only the photocopies of the case appear,. They explain me that the original documents are in the Historical File of the Kingdom of Galicia in A Coruña, where also I had thought to go, since there are the papers of the appeal of the judgement in the court of this city.

Arrival to Europe.

I finish of sitting down in front of the computer of this old pension of Ourense's old hull. The first thing that I think is that probably my temporary residence, when it was not used as accommodations for strangers and It was the official residence of the members of a family of nobles, Manuel Blanco Romasanta could be a connoisseur of this "Pazo” (Country house), probably even he sold them silk scarves or some iron stuff.
Little by little, for that not know, I will be telling you the history of the Sacamanteigas. He was “quincalleiro” of profession, was one of these ambulant shopkeepers that they were walking for the deep Ourense that still even he makes small well they could be seen.
My first day in the territory Sacamanteigas was exhausting. My plane landed late in the Barajas Airport, in Madrid. Very early in the morning was difficult to see the sunshine. Europe received me with a marvellous warm day. Here the pace oflife is very different from Newberry's tranquility. I realized of this change when I rented a car to go to Ourense. Madrid is a modern city, capital of an old state, where the importance of being part of the powerful old Europe wasn’t an inpediment to enter to form part of the globalized world . It’s for that from the outside the city looks impersonal and ugly, as a great eater of. individual indentities, small stories and the "images to the sauvette".
Reached this point I have to talk about Mr. Antón, he would be my colleague during my trip to Europe, but not physically.
Antón is the Portuguese voice of the GPS of the rented car.
Each language has a typical name of each country. I harried up in putting it in Portuguese to practice it, because of for years I have it left.
In the 1999, when I did a research about the six thousand languages which still alive in Brazil. At that time my stay had been longer and let me learn Portuguese, language which will be very useful in this new adventure because of In Galicia a similar language is spoken.
Mr. Antón guides me through the road A-6 to the Northwest of Spain.
Parts of the road remains me the wide extensions of Texas desert .
It is Castile (Castilla), though Texas's difference the reddish color only is in the housings of the minuscule settlements of mud, which contrast with the big yellow extensions of hay.
And while Mr. Antón indicates the detours and crossroads to me I digress about the importance that it has to know site that you study, and develop the investigation in situ... I, who for the texts that I handled was imagining big wooded frondages, for the descriptions that the own Romasanta does in the court of 1st Instance (Authority) of A Coruña, where he speaks about the oakwoods and the pastures where he committed the crimes under the psychological disorder that was suffering, the lycanthropy...As soon as I take another road called A-52, and suddenly all starts to change little by little. It seems that I sink in another country, and now I must be in territory Sacamanteigas . Yellow colors turns in to green , a few constructions at the edge of a road of high capacity are old brown stone, just like I had imagined.

The Lycan Foundation

The Lycan Foundation was created in the year 2002, as a legacy of the last member of the Algonquian Iðiniwü family, which originally came from Ontario, but ubicated since the Independence War in the North of Michigan.
The Algonquians are animists, I mean; they have strong religious believes in the nature.
Actually there are reserves in some states, but at the moment, most of them are spread through the American society.
The Iðiniwü family had a special relation with nature, some legends connect their history to the Wendigo: the seventh son of each generation had the ability of transforming in wolf.
This mutation was happening after obtaining the adult age (fifteen years for the Algonquians) and always after listening to voices that were coming from the deepest of the forest.
Nowadays this strange phenomenon is being studied by the best psychologists of the world, immediately after that Joseph-Pierre Durand du Gros (1826-1901), father of the hypnotism, spoke about the Lycanthropy as an atavistic call of the nature to which the human being was answering with the most primitive instincts.
The Lycan Foundation has objectives as protect, restore the legacy of Iðiniwü, and the spreading of its discoveries and its History.
For example, one of the first actions of The Lycan Foundation is the production of an exposition which starts in Newberry (Michigan) and will go through almost tall the American States .
But the most important aim is develop studies related to the science of the lycanthropy, in Algonquian land or in any part of the world where the lycanthropes exist, favoring its scientific spreading, its study for specializing experts, as well as the investigation of past cases and its recovery of an attempt of dignifying of the historical memory of those who along the history had the quality of transforming.

Documentation

During months I was compiling information for the investigation: in Internet, in historical files, libraries and foundations. By now the only studied made about Romasanta which worth to name for his rigour is at Xosé Domínguez's web. I used it as a guide to start my research. Domínguez with Lino Blanco published “O home do unto. Manuel Blando Romasanta. Historia real de una leyenda” (The man of the lard. Manuel Blanco Romasanta, real story of a legend) study published by the Deputación Provincial de Ourense (Ourense's Council Provincial) in 1991.

Advisable also the film Romasanta, the hunt of the beast, (2004) produced by Filmax and directed by Paco Plaza, although the adaptation to the Cinema was not a faithful guide to the facts perpetrated by Romasanta, it’s useful to do an environmental recreation of the life of “Sacamanteigas”.
I would stand out, the web part mentioned previously, and the information that I could get from the Arquivo do Reino de Galicia (Historical Archive of the Kingdom of Galicia), Arquivo Histórico Provincial de Ourense (Ourense's Provincial Historical Archive) and texts written by Vicente Risco as “Un caso de Lycantropía, o home-lobo” (A case of lycanthropy, the wolf men), 1929, Ed. Moret, as well as the facsimil edition wich gives a "Review of the formulated cause at the Court of 1st instance of Allariz, district of. Coruña, against Manuel Blanco Romasanta, the “wolf man" published by the editorial Aranzadi, Pamplona, 2000.

Once recompiled and studied the existing documentation, It´s time to start the second phase of the investigation: to travel to Europe, to the place of the facts and to do a follow-up in situ for the places in which Romasanta lived, he walked, bought, sold and committed the crimes.
The trip I will do it concretly or on Tuesday, the 18th of May and stay there during one month, more or less, attending to the difficulties.

Presentation

This site is created for following-up the study and investigation that I am carrying out with the support of the Lycan Foundation.
It will work like a notebook of binnacle where I could count my experiences, the finds and discoveries that I will do along the investigation. I will turn it into an agenda with information, notes, explanations and enclosedly discoveries.

The investigation that I am to realizing is about the story of. Manuel Blanco Romasanta known by the nickname of Sacamanteigas or Sacauntos. It is the first case known about lycanthropy in Spain and that the first as well on which the files are known by the justice.

The story of the Saca manteigas takes palce in Galicia, in the northwest of. Spain, just over Portugal, in the most western and Atlantic Europe, in Ourense's province. Romasanta moved for some other provinces but I select this territory for the importance and the meaning of the facts realized there by the protagonist.

My training comes from the world of the Philosophy, in concrete I am an anthropologist. I used to work at the frame of the investigation and the last year at projects related to the Lycan Foundation.
This institution entrust to me the study of this interesting and unknown project with the objective to throw light to Manuel Blanco Romasanta's real story.

The protagonist of the research is almost a myth and his story penetrated the borders. It turns out to be specially the interpretation that did the different familiar generations of the phenomenon, in such a way that it is difficult to discern where it ends the royal history and where starts the legend.