From the god Saturn to Hannibal Lecter, passing through Hansel and Gretel, cannibalism has been present since time immemorial in mythology, folklore and, ultimately, the stories that make up the cultural heritage of humanity.
“The act of devour someone It is the first thing that comes to mind when we think of an ogre, a coconut”, explains the illustrator specializing in folklore Javier Prado. “Already the act of eating is something with a social component, it is what creates ties in a community and what links the components with it. In ancient mythologies there are the titans, there is Saturn. Cannibalism has always been something that has given us chills on a cultural level. In the ancient cultures it existed and was something that, in the eyes of an advanced society, turned people into monsters.”
It is not surprising, therefore, that devouring creatures have a prominent place in Iberian monsters, Spanish ogres and frightening children, a book in which Prado reviews the main creatures of Iberian folklore. Monstrous figures who, at a time when education as we understand it today hardly existed, played a fundamental role in the maintenance of social order.
“Their invocation by the parents, in addition to getting the child to behave by going to bed on time or staying quiet, used to obey a series of specific reasons: many times they sought to generate, through fear of imaginary figures, a instinct of preservation so that the boy would avoid dangerous places such as caves, forests, rivers… Or so that he wouldn’t be out of the house at late hours or trust strangers”, explains Prado.
The secret history of the ogres
In Spain, most of the frightening children come from the French figure of the ogre. According to some nineteenth-century French historians, the French word ogrecould derive from Hungarian Hong Konga term used to refer to the Ugrians, You celebrate looters who spread terror in the Christian West.
Most of the child scare comes from the French figure of the ogre
But, regardless of the etymology of the word, the truth is that the ogre is a type of being that, with small variations, is present in almost all cultures in the world. “Studies of comparative mythologies they always find analogies”, explains Prado, “They misbehave in the same way, taking care of children who lie or don’t wash”.
The fear of the different – motor of the great contemporary horror writer, H. P. Lovecraft– is also very present in all these figures. In each region of Spain these characters have peculiar characteristics, but in addition to ogres or witches, we find another type of plaguedas they are vagrants, tuberculous, Jews, gypsies or Muslims.
This is the case, for example, of the Tragantia, one of the devouring monsters included in the book by Prado, a native of Cazorla (Jaén): a Moorish princess whom the king of the city left hidden in the castle when the Christians invaded. The daughter of the Moorish king was transformed into a half-woman, half-serpent monster that emerges on the nights of San Juan to devour the town’s children.
Don’t go up to the barn alone
La Tragantía is a peculiar case of a child-eating monster, with a very specific and localized legend. It is not usual. As Prado explains, the most widespread child scare in Spain is the archetype of gluttonous ogrewhich is called Tragaldabas, Zarrampla, Xamparrón, Zampón, Tragantúas, Gargantúa…
This monster, dedicated body and soul to devour childrenhas countless regional variants, whose histories are intertwined and whose origins are almost impossible to identify exactly.
The monster dedicated body and soul to devouring children has countless regional variants
“The archetype is the folkloric story in which there is a pantry that little children go to,” explains Prado. “There lives an ogre that devours everyone who enters the cupboard, until a little ant arrives and stings the ogre, which vomits or expels these characters through the ass. Is he victory of the weak against the strong.
In some areas of Castilla y León, La Rioja and the Basque Country this character, already useless as a child scarecrow, has become fairground: the children enter through the mouth of the giant and, through a slide, they come out through the ass.
Gore fan? Read children’s stories
In Iberian MonstersPrado collects other beings fond of cannibalism such as the Paparresolla, a kind of harpy devours children; the Papon, a Galician-Asturian tragaldabas with mumps; the Friar Motilon, a monk fond of kidnapping children; either Brute Mariaa Catalan ogress famous for stealing dozens of children every day to cook them and feed her colleagues.
As with popular children’s stories, with which most of these monsters are strongly rooted, none of these ogre stories would be considered suitable for children today. Until well into the 19th century, Prado points out, “Children’s rights did not exist, they were just like adults and work as much as they could”. There was also no school, and fear was a fundamental resource to transmit the values of society.
“It must be borne in mind that at the time these tales became popular the child poverty and famine was something on the order of the day”, explains the author of Iberian Monsters. “Many of the children in these stories were hungry and that hunger was their undoing.”
This is the case of the protagonist of what is, perhaps, the most terrifying story in all of Spanish children’s folklore: the story known as The roast of the dead. In it, a mother sends her daughter to beg guts from the butcher shop. As they do not trust her, the girl, who is starving, takes the offal from a corpse in the cemetery and her mother gives it to her to cook. The two eat it and, at night, the dead man comes to claim what is his.
In Gijón, this dead person was a woman, Maria les Campanilleswho operated like scary boys with the following lullaby: “Tilín, tilín, tilín/ I am María les Campanilles/ I come on my knees/ and at the foot of your bed toi./ Give me my offal, hard, hard/ that you stole from me. the grave”.
Iberian Monsters: Spanish Ogres and Scarecrows
“[La historia] relates famine, cannibalism, and respect to the deadPrado concludes. “Cannibalism is desecration and justice from beyond the grave is essential in Catholic countries. Spain, for better or for worse, many of these traditions that have to do with Catholicism have remained intact in their most archaic aspects, and it is interesting to rescue them so that they are not lost”.
Images | Javier Prado/SangutxuJai
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