These days, Olentzero, the Basque “Santa Claus” who brings gifts to children during Christmas, is reasonably well recognized in the Basque diaspora. He not only visits children in Euskal Herria, but can often be found in Basque clubs in the United States, South America, and elsewhere. Even the New Mexico Euskal Etxea, back when it […]
In almost any Basque-themed celebration of Christmas, instead of Santa Claus, a very distinct figure appears, wearing not a bright red suit trimmed in white but rather a more mundane outfit, often a blue or black shirt with blue pants topped off with a black beret. In modern times, he is portrayed as a joyful […]
Basques are known for the strong Catholic devotion. However, the Basques are also known to have converted to Christianity relatively late. Before, they had a mythology that was based on various supernatural beings. One of those was the Jentilak, or race of giants. These beings, immense in size, existed before humans, though maybe co-existed with […]
There has been a lot of news about Basque books… It’s Hammer Time! (am I dating myself?) Begoña Echeverria’s book, The Hammer of Witches, was just chosen as Editor’s Choice for the month of May by the Historical Novel Society! If you haven’t heard about the novel, I mentioned it here. The story of a […]
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season! I hope to get the theme updated soon so all of the links to the various pages on my site are visible again. Until then, here are some Christmas-related pages: Christmas in the Basque Country Postings about Christmas Scores for some Basque Christmas Songs The story of […]
