Articles on the Basque culture and traditions of the Basque Country and in the mountain villages of the Spanish Pyrenees.
The Lamiak, easily compared to Greco-Roman nymphs, are creatures of Basque mythology who figure greatly in local toponyms, and are often found represented in the coats of arms of the large farmhouses of the area. According to legend, the Lamia is a mermaid-like creature with either bird-like feet or a fish’s tail who dwells in mountain springs
I just popped in on Amatxi yesterday and she was bent double over the kitchen table taking in the waist on her grandson’s lace petticoats. Carnival time is coming .. by far the most exciting and loved moment of the year for our village of Ituren. There is a general buzz everywhere, groups of youths congregating in farm sheds and clinks
Another guest post from Veronica of La Recette du Jour. Being in a country where you don’t speak the language well enough to understand everything that’s going on gets you into some odd situations where you can discover all sorts of interesting things you would never have guessed the existence of otherwise. Yesterday was one
Ask Koikil what he does for a living and he will say that he is an unemployed smuggler. Like many of the people here on the Basque/Spanish – French border Koilki was a very young child when he first accompanied his father on his night smuggling missions over the Pyrenees into France. Born in 1955, Koikili’s family had a tradition of horse breeding and so he has
One of the striking things I have learned in this Basque farming hamlet of Ameztia, is just how much of daily life is affected by the moods of the weather and the cycles of the sun and moon. Amatxi, (our adopted grandmother of 83), always says that the full moon heralds a change in the weather. Yesterday there was
