O Apalpador Legend, the old Galician Santa
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Inside the town of Lugo (Galicia), in the mountains of O Courel and O Cebreiro, the children expect at Christmas the arrival of ' O Apalador'.
This custom has been inherited from the pre-Christian era and has survived through the centuries.
He was a gentle old man, bearded and big, who smoked a pipe, wore a beret, and wore a colorful jacket and trousers with patches.
They also tell that on the night of December 25 or 31, this good-natured, charcoal giant, left the high pastures where he lived and went down to the villages to sneak into the nursery. After feeling their belly with care and checking that they were well fed, he wished them not to go hungry next year and as a Christmas present left them a handful of roasted chestnuts, a fundamental food in the harsh winters of the Galician mountains in the centuries XIX and XX.
This custom has been inherited from the pre-Christian era and has survived through the centuries.
He was a gentle old man, bearded and big, who smoked a pipe, wore a beret, and wore a colorful jacket and trousers with patches.
They also tell that on the night of December 25 or 31, this good-natured, charcoal giant, left the high pastures where he lived and went down to the villages to sneak into the nursery. After feeling their belly with care and checking that they were well fed, he wished them not to go hungry next year and as a Christmas present left them a handful of roasted chestnuts, a fundamental food in the harsh winters of the Galician mountains in the centuries XIX and XX.
