Santiago’s Canary – A Pilgrim Short Story

An invented short story from the Camino: Wolfgang Janowsky tells of a pilgrim walking the Via de la Plata in high summer who, in the heat, meets a mysterious companion with a canary.

A pilgrim in the middle of life, after some difficult experiences on the Camino Francés, which was being walked by more and more pilgrims with all kinds of interests, was looking instead for the peace and solitude of a less frequented route that would nevertheless offer him a spiritual experience and good encounters with like-minded people.

His choice fell on the Via de la Plata, even though he could only make his pilgrimage in summer, the hottest time of the year in southern Spain. But he loved the unique landscape and hoped the weather would be kind to him.

He arrived in Sevilla at the beginning of August and was taken aback by temperatures of over 40 degrees. All his almost panicky fears of the heat were confirmed! But he was confident he would manage the way! Yet he was out of practice, mostly slower than the others, and so the way dragged on longer. Even when he chose stages that weren’t so long and set off – not at midnight, but – quite early, he often ended up in the heat that became almost unbearable in the afternoon.

A pilgrim from another time

One day, as he was dragging himself along a particularly monotonous track in the late midday heat with his last ounce of strength, hardly taking in his surroundings any more, he saw a pilgrim who seemed quite out of his time, calmly going his way. Astonishingly, he also heard wonderful birdsong. They drew closer and he noticed that the other pilgrim was dressed as in days of old. Not even the staff and the gourd were missing!

To his great surprise, they could understand each other straight away. The older pilgrim was also coming up the way from Sevilla and was doing stages of a similar length. However, he had much worse footwear, more a kind of Roman sandal – airy, but giving little support. And – he had a canary with him!!! Hence the beautiful singing.

The pilgrim from an earlier time, who of all things was called Santiago, told him that a good friend had given him the bird and that he had grown very fond of it. Since he didn’t want to leave the bird behind on its own, and because he had also grown too fond of its singing, he had decided to make the pilgrimage with the bird.

And so Santiago enjoyed listening to the bird’s song especially on these monotonous stretches, and thereby keeping his inner peace. And the pilgrim had this soothing experience too.

When he came into a village, he was quite surprised that this was already the place where he was to spend the night. Stranger still, Santiago had disappeared – as if he had vanished into thin air – or had he only dreamed all of this…?

While looking for an albergue, he suddenly heard the song of a canary again! When he saw that it was coming from a pilgrim albergue, he decided to stay there! After freshening up and eating a little, he got talking with the hospitalero. He told him about his wondrous experience on the way and that this was why he had chosen this albergue.

The legend of the canary

Then the hospitalero told him that the canary did indeed have a historical significance! According to an old legend, Santiago, the saint, had also had a canary with him on his travels. Caring for the bird and training its wonderful song required a great deal of patience, which the saint often lacked in his difficult tasks. He wanted to achieve many things faster, sought success far too impatiently. He often grew angry when something didn’t succeed quickly enough. In one of his dreams, when he was once again quarrelling with his God that he wasn’t granted more success, a canary appeared to him! And the next day, by chance, a friend offered him a young bird. He learned how to handle the bird; raising it and teaching it to sing also demanded slowness and great calm, but steadily brought success too. So Santiago slowly but surely learned to pursue his goals, something the bird’s ever more beautiful song always reminded him of.

Arrival in Santiago

A few weeks later, the pilgrim too reached his goal, Santiago. Whenever things weren’t moving fast enough for him or the heat became unbearable, he held on to the handed-down experiences of Santiago, whom he had probably met in a dream.

On the morning of his arrival in Santiago he was lucky, and the cathedral was still fairly empty. He walked round the altar and up to Santiago. He embraced him, happy to have made it this far safe and sound and with good – of course partly also difficult – experiences. But suddenly he could hardly believe his ears when the song of a canary rose in the middle of the cathedral. It filled him deeply, even though he was almost certain that only he – and perhaps Santiago – could hear these lovely notes! For him it was a sign not to become too impatient on the rest of his way either, and when in doubt to move forward slowly.

This is one of three pilgrim short stories by Wolfgang Janowsky. The other two are Camino 2024 and The Little Hat.