A bit of witchery is no bad thing!

We came across another little quirk of Galicia travel arrangements yesterday. Phil finished his chess game relatively early and so, instead of waiting for the tournament bus to take us down to the station just in time to miss the 9.36 pm train to Vigo, we had the chance of earlier travel. We were prepared to walk down the hill but someone offered us a lift, which we gladly accepted. Most of the folk involved in Galician chess are amazingly friendly and helpful.

So we arrived at the station just in time to miss the 7.36 pm train to Vigo. The next was at 8.55 so we walked across the road to the bus station to suss out possibilities there. The next Vigo bus was at 8.10. Much better. We had a beer in the Entresartenes (between frying pans) cafe in the bus station and then went down to buy our tickets. At the ticket office the clerk kept me waiting while she made a phone call. Rather rude, I thought, although later all was to be revealed. Her phone call done, she sold me two tickets and said the bus was almost ready. An odd remark!

Out at the bus bays was a bus with a driver in one of designated buses-to-Vigo bays. Was he going to Vigo? I and several others asked him. Wait, he told us. So we did. Another bus arrived, labelled Coruña to Vigo. Okay. We all presented our tickets. Some people were allowed to board. We and several others were told that our tickets were not for that bus. What? How could that be? The other driver, the one who had told us to wait, came over and examined our tickets. This was when we discovered that the tickets had a specific bus number printed on them. In our case it was 2326, the number I had overheard the helpful bus driver tell the ticket clerk when he came into the ticket office, in response apparently to her phone call. What number was his bus? she had asked him. 2326. I think she had found out that the bus coming from Coruña was quite full and had hesitated to sell us tickets until she had organised a back-up bus.

And so, instead of riding on a crowded bus, five of us rode to Vigo on a bus all to ourselves. I am impressed by the service! I bet they don’t put on extra trains when all the tickets have been sold!

Maybe it’s a form of bus-service magic. For magic is all around, or so they say.

If you look in the windows of tat shops (oops, sorry, souvenir shops) here in Galicia, as well as pilgrim dolls you are sure to find witches. “Brujas” in Castilian Spanish, they are “meigas” in Gallego. Cafes and restaurants incorporte them into their names and use cartoon witches as logos. They are a big part of Celtic culture.

Oddly enough the USA, home of fundamentalist Christianity as far as I can see, also has a thing about witches. I suppose that if you believe in angels then it’s logical also to believe in witches.

 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/07/monsters-men-magic-trump-awoke-angry-feminist-witches Mahdawi, going on about this and that in the Guardian, wrote, ‘We need to go full witch’ Witchcraft is having a moment. “Whether it’s hexing the president, chatting in WhatsApp covens or featuring in TV reboots, radicalised women have been finding strength in the ancient pagan arts,” according to this bewitching piece in the Guardian.  If anyone’s got a good hex, please let me know.”

Here’s a short extract from the article she referred to:

 “This is the time for getting scary,” the writer Andi Zeisler told Elle magazine on the eve of the 2017 Women’s March. “We need to go full witch.”
At the dawn of the Trump administration, witches were suddenly everywhere in the US. Neo-pagans used blogs and social media to circulate popular rituals for hexing Brock Turner (who served less than three months in jail after he was convicted of sexual assualt), the supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh (accused of sexual assault, which he denies), and Donald Trump himself.

The Trump curse was enacted by thousands of people, including the singer Lana Del Rey. “I’m a witch and I’m hunting you,” declared Lindy West in the New York Times; Jess Zimmerman and Jaya Saxena wrote a self-help book, Basic Witches, in which they explained: “If you speak when you’re told to be quiet, take pride when you’re told to feel shame, love what and who you love whether or not others approve, you’re practising witchcraft.” Half the women I know called their group chats “covens”. Trump developed a penchant for tweeting the phrase “WITCH HUNT” in caps whenever he felt persecuted.”

Of course, women who got too uppity have long been designated “witches”. Most of the ones burnt at the stake or innocently drowned on ducking stools were just women who made it plain they knew a lot, maybe more than their menfolk, and generally made a nuisance of themselves. So it’s nice to see witch label reclaimed by the witches.