The Scallop shell

Give me my scallop shell of quiet;

 My staff of faith to lean upon;

 My scrip of joy, immortal diet;

 My bottle of salvation;

 My gown of glory (hope's true gauge)

 And thus I'll go my pilgrimage.

---Sir Walter Raleigh

  

The origin of the scallop shell as the emblem of the pilgrim to Compostela is unknown, and many explanations abound.  The shell is found in Galicia along the northern beaches and has become closely intertwined with Saint James, and the pilgrimage to Santiago.  According to one source I read, the scallop shell has been associated with funerary imagery since antiquity, and the early Church appropriated it to symbolize heaven and the afterlife. 

Over the centuries the same scallop shell has taken on mythical, metaphorical and practical meanings. There are legends that the body of Saint James was washed ashore, covered in scallop shells, or that  as the boat carrying the Apostle's body approached, a rider, sometimes a bridegroom, fell into the sea and emerged covered in the shells.  Elsewhere, the lines and grooves on the scallop shell are said to represent the meeting of all the roads to Santiago, or the shell is claimed to represent the setting sun--the rays off the ends of the earth at Finisterre, where the shells are found in abundance.  The shell has also been known to symbolize baptism.

Practically speaking, the shell early on adapted well as a device for drinking water from streams along the way, and use as a make-shift bowl. It served both as a souvenir and "proof" of the pilgrimage.  The symbol has not only shown up on road markers that guided the pilgrims to the cathedral, but the motif also appeared on some of the buildings along the way and was often worn by the pilgrims themselves as badges of their journey. In commentary on the Codex Calixtinus, William Melczer informs us that the shells were sold at the entrance to the cathedral by the middle of the twelfth century, and by the year 1200 the selling of the scallop shell was even regulated, so that we know a hundred scallop shell vendors were licensed at Santiago!

With time the scallop shell came to represent the pilgrim.  As what may seem strange anomalies, the Virgin Mary, and Christ himself have even been depicted wearing the shell in art of the late Middle Ages! 

Right now I am reading David Downie's Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James which was recommended by someone on the American Pilgrims on the Camino Facebook site.  I have downloaded it to my Kindle.  Downie spends his time in France, not Spain, and currently seems to be enjoying walking the viae romanae in search of Caesar and Vercingétorix as he and his wife read through Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, hardly following the chemins de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle at all, but then I am only half-way through. . .

 

Recently another friend of mine in Paris sent me the link to a French web-site for would-be travelers of the pilgrimage routes. What caught my eye was its advertising of the 2011 film I mentioned earlier, The Way, called La route ensemble in French, as opening in France on September 25.  If it follows precedent, the film will result in a marked growth of francophone pilgrims, just as the original film increased the volume of anglophone ones . . . 

 Click below for the trailer:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7f4f_CzD5-o

I've also bought a tiny pocket pedometer from Amazon. I finally got it to work after discovering that the battery was in upside down!  I suppose the manufacturer did it to save the life of the battery, although I was surprised that there was one already inserted, since it came with a second one. . .  To make it function properly, I had to estimate my stride, and add my weight, and the thing in return calculates the miles walked and calories burned!  I tried it out walking the dogs on the trail near Lake Frank, and it gave me roughly the same distance reading going and returning, so I assume it works. . .

My pocket pedometer--the little LED display window slides shut so it is quite small