Tradition says that Morcín warriors were those who, having come to the call of King Rodrigo and having survived the disaster of the Guadalete, guided and escorted Don Pelayo through the mountains of the interior of Asturias, until they reached the top of the Monsacro, where they deposited the Ark with the sacred relics that Santo Toribio had brought from Jerusalem.

This happened, shortly before the fall of the capital of the Visigoth kingdom, Toledo, and the proof of its truth, we find it inside the Holy Chamber of the Cathedral of San Salvador de Oviedo, where they were transferred by order of the king Alfonso II the Chaste.

Precisely that king, under whose reign the miraculous discovery of the remains of the Apostle Santiago took place; king who, motivated by such an extraordinary event, became, properly speaking, the first pilgrim, inaugurating, in his displacement, what would be known as Camino Primitivo, which developed from Oviedo, through the interior of Asturias, to the 'Locus Sancti Iacobi ', in Santiago de Compostela.

I remember this, because the Tradition, the Monsacro and Saint Eulalia de Morcín, are closely linked. Not in vain, this emblematic Asturian population is located at the very foot of a mountain that already had its status as a sacrum, centuries, perhaps millennia before the relics came to it, as they demonstrate -or rather, they showed- dolmens that were on its top (1), of which there is no trace, as well as the burial mounds that, still hidden in the terrain, can still be seen.

Located just eight kilometers from Oviedo, in the heart of a mining basin -two kilometers separate it from a mining town par excellence, such as Mieres del Camino- the modern historical avatars have caused a dent in one of the elements, well determined, that could have turned it , nowadays, in another cultural center of main attention, in what the so-called Art or Asturian Pre-Romanesque refers: its church dedicated to the figure of Santa Eulalia de Mérida.

As in many other places in the Peninsula, Asturian religious art was terribly affected by well-defined historical periods: the French invasion, the Mendizábal confiscation, the October 1934 revolution, and, of course, the terrible vicissitudes of the Civil War .

During the mining revolution of 1934, the church of Santa Eulalia was burned and practically destroyed. It is true that the subsequent renovations have not done any justice, although the arcane solera goes back -according to its founding stone, miraculously preserved in one of the walls located in front of the altar- to the year 896, you can still to distinguish some interesting elements: the jambs of the portico of entrance, with impressive polisqueles and an extraordinary knot of Salomón; a window in the apse; the original consecration pile and a celtic altar, covered with plaster, concealed in one of the side chapels, although no existence has not gone unnoticed for Culture and Heritage.

For the rest, the visitor who accesses the place for the first time, is, if observer, with a Santa Eulalia structured in two well-differentiated strata: one, stately, which is located at the beginning of the town, consisting of some bars -included the Robert, where he used to go at night to have a sandwich and a beer- and some blocks of flats with residential characteristics, and another one closer and rural, located above, next to the roundabout, with the church, the town hall, the pharmacy and a small grocery store.

A few meters above them, an old mansion with several floors and the walls painted in various shades of green, the color of the Asturian countryside, is striking. This is the rural hotel La Casa Vieja, whose owner, Maxi, has a hórreo and an old mill, which likes to teach the curious, and which today works perfectly.

Precisely on my last trip, which happened just a week ago, the window of my room overlooked the part of the mill.

After an intense day of travels and discoveries, with the window open, it was gratifying to be carried away by the arms of Morfeo, listening to the sweet sound of the river - I could not say for sure if the Riosa or the Morcín, both tributaries of the Caudal- and that mysterious nana that, brought by the wind of the misty peaks of the Monsacro, slipped into the room in silence and in darkness, bringing with it the magic of ancient stories.

Notes, References and Bibliography:

(1) It is assumed that one of the two Romanesque hermitages on the summit, the so-called upper chapel or hermitage of Santiago, with an octagonal plan, was erected just above a dolmen.

NOTICE: originally posted on my blog MEMORIES OF A PILGRIM. Both the text and the photographs that accompany it are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry, where you can check the authorship of juancar347, can be found at the following address: https://jc347.blogspot.com/2011/09/pueblines-del-camin-santa-eulalia-de.html