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Cruz de los Valientes

Bert45

Veteran Member
Time of past OR future Camino
2003, 2014, 2016, 2016, 2018, 2019
The Cruz de los Valientes (Cross of the Brave), between Santo Domingo de la Calzada and Grañón, is made of wood, according to the Santo Domingo tourist office, and just about every website I saw on the first page of Google results. The tourist office says it was erected early in the 19th century, i.e. about 200 years ago. However, it does not look like wood (it's grey and shows no grain – you can take a look with Streetview). Also, wouldn't a wooden cross have rotted away after 200 years?
I have read that this cross is made of iron (or steel, more likely) and replaced an earlier cross about 1 km to the south. Does anyone on the forum know any more about it?
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
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There a tale attached to that cross https://www.alberguecofradiadelsanto.com/leyendas-del-camino-de-santiago-la-cruz-de-los-valientes/

Not much to do with Santiago, though Santo Domingo appears in some versions. The original Cross, it is said, was cut from Holm Oak, the source of the dispute. Sources also suggest that it is replaced from time to time even into modern times, and with Holm Oak (have you seen the price of steel?).

My limited experience of Spanish culture suggests that any legend involving winning a wrestling match that incorporates feasts of beans, a finger and an anal sphincter will be treasured and preserved down a thousand generations ;)
 
Thanks for that, Tincatinker. Can you account for the appearance of the cross? I'll take a magnet with me on my next camino.
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
Well seasoned oak, especially Holm Oak has a silvered appearance, unless it has been coated with pitch in the Tudor tradition. The pitching prevents water-logging but was probably unnecessary in Spain, or unaffordable. Pitch was expensive.
 
I have attached my photo of the cross (2016). It is grey rather than silver, and it is very smooth. Even when I zoom in I cannot see a trace of grain. Of course, that could be because it has had 50 coats of grey paint applied over the years.1-sd card 515.JPG
 
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A news article seems to say that the cross is not 200 years old. That only "hace años" ago, someone built a wooden cross in honour of the nice legend but then the cross disappeared again when a new road was built. Sorry ... this raises new questions and provides no answers as to the current cross 😎. The articles are from 2014. We must not be gullible when tourist offices or tourist guides tell us a nice story. ;)

 
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Here are 2 earlier photos of the Cruz de los Valientes and a postcard. This does look like a wooden cross, made by a carpenter, treated with tar or pitch (I don't know the difference) as @Tincatinker said. I don't know when the photos were taken. It looks like the Cruz de los Valientes changed location and appearance ... think of it more as a place than an object. 😏

Wooden cruz Grañon.jpg
(Edited to add image of postcard)
 
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Each time I think: "This question is impossible to answer, I'm not going to even try". And then there are a few replies and I can no longer resist ... 😎. So here we have a Spanish walker on his third camino to Santiago who passes this place on Sunday 17 April 2005 and expects, as he says, to see the Cruz de los Valientes but he doesn't see it. The big wooden cross is conspicuously absent. And so he takes a photo for the record, as he says:

(Click to enlarge)
Valientes 17 April 2005.jpg
 
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The Cultural Association of the Friends of the Ermita de Carrasquedo in Grañon write in the timeline on their website that this happened in 2001 which is the 13th year of their existence:

Year 13. 2001. Juancho premieres the song "La Cruz de los Valientes". The space is remodelled with a metal cross.
It took me a while to understand it but it seems to me that Grañon and Santo Domingo organise a yearly event at the cross to celebrate and honour their current "valientes".
 
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The Ermita de Carrasquedo mentioned above by Kathar1na is also a youth hostel with dorm facilities and inexpensive good meals. No need for any special hostel card to stay there, your pilgrim Crendencial does the trick.
 
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The Ermita de Carrasquedo mentioned above by Kathar1na is also a youth hostel with dorm facilities and inexpensive good meals. No need for any special hostel card to stay there, your pilgrim Crendencial does the trick.
This is a 1.5 km walk from Grañon itself, either directly or across the fields. It´s a quiet spot, and the Ermita itself has a lovely atmosphere.
IMG_7485.JPGIMG_7471.JPGIMG_7472.JPGIMG_7476.JPG
 
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The Cultural Association of the Friends of the Ermita de Carrasquedo in Grañon write in the timeline on their website that this happened in 2001 which is the 13th year of their existence:

Year 13. 2001. Juancho premieres the song "La Cruz de los Valientes". The space is remodelled with a metal cross.
It took me a while to understand it but it seems to me that Grañon and Santo Domingo organise a yearly event at the cross to celebrate and honour their current "valientes".
Oh, Kather1na! You come up with the goods once again! What a detective you would make! I'd like to stick that in the pipe of the Tourist Office of Santo Domingo and suggest that they smoke it. However, it indicates that I was wrong in my assumption that Mario's wooden cross was still there in 2014. I thought that the 2014 articles (Kathar1na's post #7) would have mentioned that the celebrations were not at Mario's cross, although one of them states: "La reforma de la carretera N-120 hizo desaparecer aquella entrañable cruz," He had died the week before, but had been honoured at the celebrations the year before. But, if the metal cross was erected in 2001, how did it come about that the pilgrim found a blank space, presumably where the wooden cross had stood, in 2005? Could he not see the metal cross? Perhaps he was walking an earlier path of the Camino which went past the place where the wooden cross had stood. But if the new N-120 had required the removal of the wooden cross in 2001, I would not expect its former location to be still there in 2005.
 
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The cross was there 10 May 2016 when I bicycled from Cirueña to Villafranca Montes de Oca. Also a sign saying
“Esta cruz recuerda una disputa entre Santo Domingo de la Calzada and Grañon por la propiedad de una dehesa. Hoy, olvidadas esas antiguas demandas, hermana a ambas localidades.”
A couple of good accounts:
https://www.artehistoria.com/.../cruz-de-los-valientes
Sumo in Spain: "de forma que aquel que consiguiera expulsar al otro fuera del perímetro sería el vencedor"
 
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I passed this way just yesterday and sat down for 10 minutes right next to the cross, which I took scant notice of.
Had I seen this thread before, I would have poked at it to prove/disprove whatever the current theory is..

I didn't notice the fields must have been ploughed by a drunk farmer either, until I looked again at this photo just now..
 

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I didn't notice the fields must have been ploughed by a drunk farmer either, until I looked again at this photo just now..
I'm sure some farmers drink on the job, but the wild paths are probably from driving across the field later with no concern for the damage to half a percent of the crop.
 
Or perhaps the meandering paths were caused by a feral cat stalking an unsuspecting songbird or otherwise innocent creature, will we ever know?
 
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