Christ the hunter

In a romance from Almansa on the La Mancha-Levant borders:

Jesucristo fue a cazar,
y cazaba como solía,
ni cazaba cosa buena,
ni cosa que le valía.

Tweaked:

Our Lord he went a-hunting
And hunted as bad as ever
Not one of all the beasts he caught
Was any use soever.

Since I can’t immediately recall any other shotgun saviour lyrics, I wonder whether this isn’t Sylvanus, the Roman god of agriculture, forestry, borders and hunting. Further complicating things, the Albacete oral history collection from which this comes (MP3s here) also includes an evil shepherd, who betrays local outlaw, Francisco Ríos, “el Pernales”. Sylvan- also turns up in the incestuous Romance of Sylvana, found in versions all over the peninsula, sometimes under the name Delgadina, which Menéndez Pelayo (Orígenes de la novela) however suggests may come from the Moorish romance of the daughter of King Nachrab.

Related posts

• Another bandolero ballad
• The problem with Bulgarian shepherds
• Shagging with wolves
• Spurious history: the origins of shepherd’s pie
• Xulet

Comments

1. kalebeul » Another bandolero ballad sez:
   8 May 2006 at 9:52 PM

   [...] Google a line to find the rest–loads of spam sites out there. I don’t see a great deal of difference between this stuff and traditional Spanish romances about guys like el Pernales, but the old couple looked worried and walked through to the next car. Trevor on 2006/5/8 @ 21:51 in Of music and its name ‹‹ Domains for non-existent countries ‹‹ [...]

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