Post Post Script--Suero de Guiterrez

Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Oh, I had a 7th thing I wanted to do on this repeat camino. I wanted to see the iron collar of Suero de Guiterrez. He is probably my favorite camino personality and I am sorry he died about 700 years ago and I cannot meet him.

He was a love sick Spanish knight who fell in love with a lovely lass but was spurned by her in his offer of marriage. He donned a iron collar, challenged all the knights of Europe to jousts at Hospital del Orbigo, a lovely spot with a long long bridge that is a little over halfway from St. Jean to Santiago. He vowed to break 300 lances or die trying.

Knights from all across Europe answered his challenge and came to Spain. He was successful and when he broke his 300th, he doffed his iron collar after he walked to Santiago as a pilgrim. He left it there and it ws supposedly in the museum collection. I do not know how his love interests fared. But he continued on as a knight, participating in the interminable Spanish civil wars. He was out in the field on a day some 20 years later and met the last knight whom he had defeated at the bridge. They had a final battle and it was Suero who fel--this time to his death.

So I am in the museum yesterday looking for this item. Surely, I thought, it would be a manly studded affair, something that Mel Gibson would have worn in MAD MAX. I saw nothing to fit the bill. I was stymied and went up to the guard. Luckily I was wearing the only shirt with a collar I had. I pointed to the collar and asked "¿que es en espanol?" Of course I had to repeat the request the requisite 4 times before he understood me, giving me perplexed looks all the while. So he said"cuello" finally. So I asked, " ¿ Donde est el cuello de ferro de Suero de Guiterrez?" That was the longest--and probably the most intelligent question I have ever asked in Spanish. I was really quite proud of myself. Of course, the guard did not understand me. I had to keep repeating it, but unfortunately had forgotten already the word for collar. So I kept saying "de fero" and "Suero" before the light clicked in his head and he figured out what I was so insistent on.

It turns out I was right across the hall from the hallowed object. It was in the reliquary room, always my favorite outpost in a religious musuem anyway. I garnered from the guard's detailed instructions (alas, of course, in Spanish) that Suero´s love necklace was in the middle of the wooden altar cum retablo. The guard thankfully took me in and pointed it out--otherwise I would have certainly NOT spotted it on the neck of the absolutely fab CAPUT ARGENTEUM, a golden bust reliquary that purportedly holds the head of St. James Alpheus (a close relation????) .

So did this studly knight have the big dog collar like something out of MAD MAX that I was expecting.



NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

He had a dainty little choker (pictured here--sorry for the fuzzy picture--I had to stay behind a gate to take it) that would have looked divine on Audrey Hepburn´s neck. It looked a lot like gold not iron and had a huge stone in the center. No wonder Suero had to fight so much. He had to prove his manhood wearing that piece of stunning jewelry. Bet he was the butt of many a joke on the battlefield. And it is no wonder that the last knight he conquered was burning so with revenge--can you imagine the ribbing he got from his mates. "So, you couldn´t even knock down the guy with the lady´s necklace, huh?"

Explanations? Well, I might have been shown someone else´s collar. Or the original collar might have been gilded and be-stoned. But I kind of like to think of this manly man riding out on his valiant steed probably humming songs from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY´S and fingering his little choker and wondering which boots would look best with it at the castle later that night. I wonder if he missed it later?