As Seixas (Lugo) (0)

Did you know that... As Seixas

Merlán, Casacamiño and O Hospital das Seixas are part of the parish of Merlán, the westernmost in the province of Lugo in the Primitive Way and San Xurxo and Montecelo in the parish of Ambas Aguas, all located north of the municipality of Palas de Rei to which they belong, and with the common characteristic of being the last places through which the Primitive Way runs in the province of Lugo. Located in a beautiful valley protected by hills such as the Sierra de Careon. Hospital das Seixas is located on the same ascent to the Alto da Serra do Careón.

A little more history

Places with ancestral settlements of population of old castreña culture, like the castro A Ourela De Aguas Santas located in San Xurxo, but mainly of important tradition road, of which they are inescapable witnesses the names of the villages and places of the zone. The existence of a pilgrims' hospital is also known, such as the one that gave rise to the birth of the population nucleus of Hospital das Seixas, which belonged to the Order of Malta, the former Knights Hospitaller of Saint John of Jerusalem, dependent on the encomienda of Portomarín.

What to see in As Seixas, San Xurxo and Montecelo?

Among cultivated lands, pastures and groves the traveller goes around hamlets and villages that show their small monuments in which you can recognize the importance that the place had in other times and the desire of today's people to maintain and beautify their environment. Thus in San Xurxo or San Xorxe, very close to the church of San Xurxo de Ambas Aguas, as the parish church is called, inside which keeps an altarpiece from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, there is a quiet corner where the fountain with table and stone benches are presided over by an image of the Apostle Santiago. In Montecelo, a fountain can be seen pouring its waters into a trough that could well have been a sarcophagus of a necropolis.

To discover

Then Merlán and its church of San Salvador from the 12th century, which lost a good part of its Romanesque elements in the reforms it underwent in the 15th or 16th centuries. The dedication to San Salvador, patron saint of the cathedral of Oviedo, affirms its close link to the Primitive Way. As Seixas, the tiny hamlet of Casacamiño or the place where the old San Juan hospital was located, Hospital das Seixas, surrounded by a beautiful landscape, invite to calm and tranquillity.

Festivities

San Xorxe and Montecelo, both from the parish of Aguas Santas celebrate their patron saint San Jorge at the end of April. In Merlán, As Seixas, Casacamiño and Hospital das Seixas, in the parish of Merlán, celebrate their festivities on 6 August in honour of San Salvador.

Traditions

In San Xurxo, according to oral tradition, there was a "prison" many years ago, which could well be a preventive prison, where they put the bandits who assaulted travellers waiting for Justice to come and take care of them.

Curiosities

The toponym of the parish of Augas Santas makes us think of ancestral rituals and cults that were later Christianized and in which the liquid element was present. Reference to the importance of the place is undoubtedly made by the name of some houses such as that of the scribe, of the zapateiro, of the ciruxano...

The Legend

The rocky peaks of the Penedos de Casacamiño and Penedo do Hospital, which look out over the vegetation, seem to be the guardians of some hidden treasure, and if we pay attention to the usual toponym of the area, seixo, they may hide some quartz deposit, seixo.