Astures today:

 

 

 Myths and customs that last until our days:

Asturian art:

So much in the ancient decorations: stelas, military engravings, adornments (as torques, bracelets, clasps, fíbulas ...), (maybe of Celtic origin), as well as the current decorations: triskels, tetra-triskels, rosettes, radiant circles ..., this way like zoomorfos also current, outlined birds, snakes, horses ..., anthropomorphous as human heads, warriors ... and vegetables, (where they predominate over the branches of yew), the majority of this decoration gives us barns, large-doors and furniture of the house, places that need to be protected (example: the crop us barns), and in minor measurement us canes, hilts, etc., also, in the majority, it(he,she) is assimilable to the Celtic culture in Asturies.

 

On the top from left side to right: Triskel, Rosette, both sets in a barn and the last photo is a barn with roof of broom. Below: tetraskel, heads decorated in a barn, as well as some examples of heads and knot in the porticoes of the pre-rroman Asturian art.

Tipical decoration.

 

Legen and tradition of today:

In the struggle against blunt, which did not die in the war were flung down by high towers or by bottomless chasms; others were thrown to the flames and others, fixed in crosses, where they were dying enlivening his singings of war and shouting <<IXUXÚS>> stentorian. These ritual shouts, they are the same shouts that Valle-Inclán transcribed in the Carlist trilogy. Represented of the same way, between Irishes and Scots. Surely with the same meaning in every sense. The poem that relates it from another side of the sea is: 

"Through the looking glass and what Alice found there", of Lewis Carroll, and one poem called Jabberwocky,  that this have some verse:
"Oh frabjous day!, Callooh!, callay!"

Traslate to Castilian language (Alianza Editorial version) in:
"¡Qué fragarante día! ¡Jujurujúu! ¡Jay, jay!"
In the end of the work said:


"Finally, the ritual shouts, which in the Jabberwocky are Scotch or Irishes, have been translated by me using the most beautiful shouts that are heard in the north of Spain and that Valle-Inclán transcribed in his Carlist trilogy. Here they are represented of the same way. I believe that they have the same meaning in every sense. "

Xana: fairy who lives in the caves, rivers and sources with many similary to the goddess Celtic 'Ana', the Gallic 'Divonna' or the deity of the waters 'Sianna' found in Mont Doré (Auverne).

Still there are people that send it bits of bread, or they looks for the xanes in the rivers and sources where they say that the xanes appear.

In the page of oral file, one of the transcriptions is told, a history on a xana, in which the xana stole the son of a female neighbor.

 

Example of a mermaid, capital pre-Romanic Asturian art.

 

 

Güestia: Procession of souls in a sorrow, they announce that someone is going to die. Between other omens there is the ' car of the death ', similar to the Charrete moulinaire of Brittany.

Cuélebre: giant snake that does the labor of taking care of sources or exchequers as in some Celtic mythologies.

The "stone of the snake " of San Martin de Güerces (Xixón, Asturies). This stone coincides with the Gallic legend gathered by Plinio told in  his history naturist in whom seven snakes do slobbers to obtain a ball in order this object. (The stone still is kept in Asturies).

 

Busgosu: The protector of the forest, has the same attributions that the Celtic god "CERNUNOS", both have the same representation.

 

Ñuberu: The master of the storm,  mythological figure that attracts the thunders and comes mounted in a cloud, maybe he to be the perduración in the mind of Asturians of the Celtic god "TARANIS".

 

And the list is endless, trasgos, ventolinos, diaños, ojancanos... (They all have the Celtic ones parallel in other mythologies especially). A very interesting myth, since it reflects an ancient worship "the divinification of the white horse":

Two very similar histories of oral tradition in spite of the distance:

Summarized history relating to the Each Uisge (Scotland): " Nine men come drunkards and they mee the horse white, one mounts and still there is site for other person and like that successively until the nine are in the loin of horse. And in this moment it is when the horse rushes to the water suffocating all, on the following morning only is floating in the water his guts."

And now the history in Vil.labandú (Quirós, Asturies): " Nine cowboys who come from a pilgrimage meet a white horse and they mount the nine in him, one of them see the supernatural of the fact, since the horse lengthens very much his body of unreal form. One cowboys said the God names and the horse disappears.”

The word 'God' or the 'Saints' name it is slightly habitual in against the mythological beings in Asturies since they seem to detest the above mentioned term, so to aim that the Diañu Burllón takes the form of white horse in order which some unscrupulous rider mounts it and after a cavalcade throws it in a river, lake, creek or another way with water.

Similar legends can be in: Poitou (France) au'l Cheval Mallet, ride for the airs the unfortunate ones that mount it to throw them to a water well, only the medal San Benito can protect. Others are: South of France (principally in the Rhone) The Drac.; German Mythology the Nykur.; In Iceland the Vatnahestur.

Very similar representation to found in the stelas celtiberics, this one is an pre-Rromanic Asturian art. 

 

 

The cristianización in Asturies was late, some examples of mixtures of religions we have them in some customs: Though masked nowadays by the catholicism, still they remain: it is known that even it does little the clergymen they were complaining that the Asturians were putting candles in stones, sources and trees. And they did not do another thing that to construct over, or next to the sacred places. I will put some examples; in Llugás (Villaviciosa's council), until a few years ago the masses were given outdoors in an altar near a centenary yew, (the yew is a sacred tree for the ástures, as well as of the rest of Celtic peoples, the majority of churches and hermitages have a yew to the side, chance, or maybe recollections of a distant culture. Centenary yews line up with the chapels, an example is Bermiego's thousand-year-old yew (Quirós). The Crhistianize of the ástures could to be with the Bretons tha emigrate from Britonia, which formed Bretoña's bishopric in Lugo (mentioned previously), of that it is said that he is an inheritor that of Uviéu (Asturies).

 Another proof is the mention in the Chronicle Albeldense of the employment of the force on the part of Ramiro I (842 - 850 A.D.) to end with the pagan practices "he ended with the magicians by means of the fire".

Also it is a coincidence that the river Deva is born in Cuadonga, the Santina, maybe the change of a former Celtic goddess 'Deva' to a Christian, virgin ' the Virgin of Cuadonga ', Deva is frequent in the toponymy of places that were occupy for the Celts, like that in Spain we it have from Galicia to the Basque Country, and it was also, an example is Deva (Chester, Cheshire).

 

Dance and sports:

Danza prima, the Pericote, the Saltón, the Guirrios, Corri-corri, the Danza les Espaes (Today this is extinct)....  and sports: the Baltu, the Barra, the Bolos, the xuegos de palos, competitive with animals...

Autocthonous animals:

Asturcones: together with the poneys of  'exmoor' and 'dartmoor', they are some of the purest races of the Celtic ponies.

Cow Roxa Asturian (Casina and Carreñana): represented in Europe for the Aubrac, Tarantesa and Partesana, in France and Tarina in the Alps.

Xalda: concerns to the tuero of Celtic sheeps, Ouessant in Armorica, Black Wales in Wales and morite in Scotland.

And we lack the goat Bermeya and ' gochu d'urecha llarga ' a Celtic pork that is on the verge of extinction. 

 

 

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