Book Review: Pilgrim Spirit
Pilgrim Spirit: Elías Valiña and the Revival of the Camino 1959-1989
by Luis Celeiro Álvarez (English translation by Laurie Dennett)
Bolanda Edicions & Marketing, 2024
198 pages
Reviewed by Rebekah Scott | Moratinos, Spain
Pilgrim Spirit is unique in the Santiago literature canon. It’s not a diary, guidebook, or novel. It’s not even new—it was first published in 2007, in Spanish. It’s a biography, the story of Elías Valiña Sampedro, the visionary Galician priest who resurrected the Camino de Santiago trail and set in motion the pilgrimage we know today.
Elías Valiña was a historian, researcher, and writer. He was born in 1929 near Sarria, ordained, and in 1959, at age 30, posted as parish priest at O Cebreiro, a mountaintop village where people still lived with their livestock in thatched huts.
Valiña transformed the place. He saved the ruinous church from collapse and brought in water, electricity, and transportation by twisting the arms of government, church, and utility authorities. He shepherded congregations in ten villages, wrote a doctoral thesis, and sheltered passers-by at the rectory.
He then expanded his vision to include the moribund pilgrim trail that passed by his door.
He traveled the Camino route from the Pyrénées to Santiago on foot and in his dilapidated SEAT 600 van —tracing his way via historic maps, crumbling churches, and place names. He befriended people along the way, and built them into a network. He marked the trail with yellow arrows.
By the time of his death at age 60 in 1989, Valiña had published maps, guidebooks, and a magazine, and organized groups that evolved into the Federation of Amigos del Camino de Santiago. His refuge at O Cebreiro set the standard for nonprofit albergues.
He started the avalanche.
Valiña’s work is so multi-faceted, the author of Pilgrim Spirit was clearly overwhelmed. Luis Celeiro is a journalist, and he engineered this book as a historic document, not an “easy read.” His description of Valiña’s life covers 30 pages, a list of facts and events. He leaves it to 14 other contributors to sketch the spirit of the man, people who lived and worked with Valiña. The final sections are outlines of research, guides, inventories, and conventions the priest produced. Dry reading, but invaluable to historical researchers. It’s up to some future writer to give us a full, rounded, readable portrait of Elías Valiña. Canadian historian Laurie Dennett, a Valiña family friend and Camino legend herself, translated this work to mark the anniversary of Valiña’s death.
Editor’s note: Pilgrim Spirit is available through the online shop at Ivar’s Camino Forum.
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