Barakabook Article
Issue #10

THE SPANISH GALGO ëA gun without bulletsí
Albertina Pioli

The present article aims at giving a thorough description of the Spanish Galgo, also providing the evidence of Spanish or literary sources dealing with the breed and its employment throughout the centuries. Such an enquiry consciously avoids all those ëhistoricalí errors and misunderstandings too often used to write papers on the various breeds and distinguishes itself for its philological coherence.

Sometimes we have drawn on famous literary sources concerning the Spanish sighthounds and known studies verified by original texts, and on other occasions we have chosen materials which were completely new for us, mainly discovered during my university years and research mainly based on the literature concerning the Spanish Medieval and Renaissance Hunting written tradition - and this is why I am going to focus my words above all on the XI and XVII centuries.
As I said, I will start my historical 'journey' from the Middle Age.
As a matter of fact the breed of the Spanish Galgo was by the Middle Ages already so well known and spread as to require them to be mentioned and ruled by the common law and penal codes.
In a legal document of November 3, 1081, dealing with a transfer of ownership in the town of Villacantol granted by Mayor Gutierrez to Diego Citid, we can read as follows: ìurso Galgo colore nigro ualente caetum solidos dae argentoî a hundred silver coins is a very high sum for a Galgo even for a high quality specimen, however the breed was very precious by the time when considering that people paid up to 20 coins for a couple of young bulls.
Another very important source can be found in the Libro de Alexandre (beginning of the XIII century), which is one of the first examples of chivalric codes in Spanish literature, Alexandre is in fact represented as the perfect medieval knight, and as Wolf has pointed out it could be considered together with the ëCantare de Mio Cidí and Gonzalo Berceoís works the very sum of the Spanish character i.e. Spanish, Christian, and knightly; the perfect embodiment of the three basic elements of the Spanish Middle Ages (the common people, the Church and chivalry). In fact the unknown author of the Book of Alexandre has the great Greek leader declare, while he is besieging the town of Thebes, ëI would be worthless/ the hare does not known the Galgo who is coursing her/for I would consider myself mean and a coward/ if I do not spoil her (Thebes) of her skiní.
The very mention in a literary text devoted to a highly refined audience of the Spanish hound, as a reference point in a comparison where the King himself is represented by the Galgo, and the besieged town to a hunted hare, shows the enormous popularity of such a hound, one which was so much a part of the everyday cultural and literary life of the country as to be a proverbial example. This is also witnessed by the beautiful Libro del Buen Amor, written by the Archbishop of Hita (Juan Ruiz, 1283?- 1350?) an astonishingly keen observer of reality and life, where we can read ìthe Galgo is set free after the escaping hareî.
But it is above all thanks to the numerous treatises about hunting - which in Spain is above all ëde monteriaí i.e. big-game hunting, the kind of hunting considered more manly, warlike, and the ideal kind of activity proper to teach young men the noble art of war - the noble people's favourite leisure sport between one military campaign and another - that we know that the Galgos were employed to quickly reach the prey and to seize it while waiting for the Great Danes to come. Both the Spanish sighthounds and the Great Danes wore a protection against the horns of deer and the wild boars. Alfonso IX in his ëLibro de Monteriaí written in 1350 writes among other things: ìit is in fact true that in Spain people breed such excellent hounds that you can hardly find a fault in themî.
The Galgo was the favourite hound in hare hunting and in a letter today collected in the Archives of the Reign of Aragona, Juan I of Cataluna and Aragona (1387-1395) who was called the ëhunterí, wrote: ìWe know that you have a white Galgo and that it is very keen on the hare and as we enjoy hunting very much we are wondering if you could send us such a houndî.
In the ëRomance of Cidí, (which takes up again the theme treated in the famous ëPoema de mio Cidí of the XI century), written between the end of the XV and the beginning of the XVI century, we find: ëAnd the gentle Cid already set off / Without kissing the hand of the king (ì.) leaving the chains full of Podencos and Galgosî.
A XV century treatise, a ëLibro de Monteriaí of which we do not know the author (some scholars believe that it could be the work of the famous poet Jorge Manrique), describes the various kind of sighthounds usually employed for the monteria at that time: ìthere are three types of hounds: the first ones are as large as the Great Dane, very strong and ardent in seizing the prey, but they canít keep the seize for a long time and are more bent to injuries, and these are the Galizia hounds. The second type is represented by lighter hounds than the Galgos, and among these only a few are keen in seizing the prey, and among these only a few are good in seizing even if I have seen some good specimens. There is still another type of sighthound which is very delicate and these are the Britonsí, but they can be of little use on the harsh and woody mountain land. A beautiful sighthound should not in any case look like the Great Dane, its head should be as elongated as its muzzle, it should be somewhat divided in the middle, its ears should look small, bent towards their middle line, and even when its joints are a bit sloping, this is not too bad, and they should be trimmed in those lands where riding is easyî, this passage which is very precise in its description of the sighthounds gives us also important information as far as the common use of cutting a part of the houndsí ears in the mountains and about the feeding of adult dogs and puppies, even criticising what Alfonso XI had handled down : ìthe Galgos and the Great Danes should be bred with the cows, because milk can help them in growing up sound and thin and also because they can develop very strong paws walking long hours every dayî, a good montero should take care personally of his hounds and feed them with ìcorn bread, and while growing up and become stronger, he should train them very hard and leave them to the care of a servantî.
Also in Italy in the ëTrattato della Cacciaí (The Hunting Treatise, 1480-90), a work dealing again with big game hunting, Domenico Boccamazza, the master of hunting of Pope Leone X, talks about the Spanish sighthounds: ìthe Spanish sighthounds are called ëGalgosí; when a specimen arrives in Rome, he behaves very well in hunting if it is average size, but they are usually very small (when compared to other sighthounds)î.
This passage can give us an idea of the extreme popularity of the Spanish sighthound not only in the Iberian Peninsula but also abroad.
Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo (1478-1557) on the contrary describes for us the enterprise of Prince Juanís Galgo, which was called Bruto, and was a very intelligent and keen specimenî. One time the prince was in Burgos and he was at the window of the Mayorís house watching the Spanish Great Danes, which are very strong and clever there, catching the cows; when he saw a bull or a cow seized by the ear by two Great Danes. The prince ordered a servant of his to get down-stairs with Bruto and to free him after the bull, but the man was not able to do this and released the hound too late so that the clever Great Danes reached the prey before him and got the bull, each one respectively at the bullís ears. When Bruto arrived, having no place left on the bull to hold, heattacked the Great Dane at his neck so as to have him leave the prey and overcome him. I saw all this with my eyes and everything went on as I said, and His Majesty, the Prince was very happy, and everyone greatly admired his houndî.
Mosén Juan Vallés in the ëLibro de la Monteriaí (Treatise on Big-Game Hunting) (1556), in book V, teaches his readers how to get together a hunting party, where it is necessary to release very fast hounds in order to take over those which have been chasing the prey, giving us very detailed information about the hows of hunting itself, and also about the kind of prey usually chased by the Galgos. He writes: ì At every point of exit just in front of where the hunters are hidden, there should be two sighthounds, two men on a horse, or at least one. If the exit is large and wide, the two sighthounds should be kept at a high place; if the exit is narrow and small, the two sighthounds should be kept near the mount where the prey has its shelter, and two more sighthounds near the place where the prey is supposed to fly away watching the mount, so that if the first ones should miss the prey, the other two could succeed in seizing it. Each brace of sighthounds should be accompanied by two horsed men, or at least one, (ì) but when it is hot hunting should take place very early in the morning, before it is hot, because the hounds would otherwise be soon tired and this is also why people should keep with them many sighthounds. (ì) As a rule, while hunting the bear, the sighthounds should be set free from behind or at the side, whereas with the boar they should be let free from behind, and with the deer at the side, and in front of the wolf so that it would not have time to fly awayî.
Argote de Molina, the editor of the first printed edition (1582) of the ëLibro de Monteriaí by Alfonso XI, in chapter XIV, describes as follows the ìmonteros de lebrelî (the hunters with the sighthounds): ìthey are twelve; they are in charge of keeping two sighthounds each assigned by the King, to help in hiding and to course and hunt the deerî.
But the most curious passage of this book is certainly the one concerning the description of the hunting practised by the Indios of the New Spain (which included California, New Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and San Salvador) using the Galgos the conquistadores had brought with them about a hundred years before: ìthere are many pumas, bears, jaguars, deer, big buck and roe deer, and there are also wild pigs, which are not usually very big in size, (ì) the jaguars usually hide themselves in the trees when chased by the hounds, (ì) in those places baren of trees, where the grass is very high and dry, they set the grass on fire and the Indios stand counter-wind waiting for the prey to run away so that they can kill it using their hounds, Galgos and arrowsî.
A hundred years after, in 1644, Alfonso de Martinez del Espinar in ëArte de bastelleria e monteriaí, makes a clear-cut distinction between the Galgo and the sighthound thus establishing the following characteristics: ìThe best hounds are the sighthounds: they are used with the deer, the boars and the bears. Their body should be very thin, with big eyes, elongated head, light and harmonious (ì). There are also other hounds which are neither too strong nor too big in their size: they are called Galgos and they kill the hare when running, because of their lightness which grants them the possibility of reaching them. They do the same with the deer and the buck.
Those bred in Spain are more agile than those we know today. A Galgo should have a small head, with very thin ears. Its body should be elongated in the neck and the muzzle; it should have big eyes and a large and strong breast, big and fleshy loins and slightly bent ribs diminishing towards the belly, tall and thin legs, hard and thin thighs and a long and thin tailî. All this looks like an ante litteram standard!
Other important writers include references to the our sighthound in their works, such as Cervantes, who in his ëDon Quijoteí, after having introduced his hero as follows, ìIn a small town of Mancha, the name of which I do not want to recollect, there lived not a long time ago a noble man of those who keep the spears in their rack and carry an old shield, a skinny nag and a hunting Galgoî, in chapter LXXIII he describes the following scene: ìSancho would have rebuked him, had he not been stopped by the sight of a hare running in the open field, chased by a pack of Galgos, and by the hunters, which came trembling and scared to find shelter under the donkey (ì) ë- malum signum, malum signum! An escaping hare, chasing Galgos: Dulcinea does not appear! You are very strange, my Lord, - said Sancho - , let us imagine Lady Dulcinea del Toboso is the hare and the chasing Galgos are the weird enchanters who turned her into a peasantî.
Lope de Vega, wrote likewise in one of his comedies, while talking of a sumptuous dinner, the main course of which was an enormous hare, ìMy Galgo bitch caught it, all along this harsh valley, she has the wind in her tailî.
The author points out the colour of such a bitch, which was striped, so as to underline that even the colour of a hound was very important in choosing a specimen.
King Carlos III (1759-1788), who reformed Spain by enhancing trade and creating banks and companies and building new streets, ports and channels, regulated hunting with the sighthounds and also the possession and breeding of such hounds all throughout Spain, with the exclusion of the three provinces of Madrid , Segovia and Toledo. Such a law applied for about a century, until the prime Minister Mendizabal abrogated it, thus permitting a new diffusion of the Spanish Galgo in the Iberian Peninsula.
Juan Manuel de Arellano in ëThe well-trained Hunterí (1788) suggested to the reader how to find hares which will be chased by the Galgos: ìThen the hare will come out and you can chase it if the Galgos chase it, but if the hare succeeds in escaping them, and you see where it stops, do not try to take it from behind, because it is annoyed and it will run long, but let her take a rest for a while, or run just in front of it so that it will fly from under your foot ì.
It is also very interesting to quote what the American writer Washington Irving (1783-1859), wrote when he was ambassador to Spain, about the Spanish tradition and uses, in a letter to Mr. Daniel, a Parisienne friend of his: ìChasing the hare with a Galgo is a peculiar Spanish habit. In the lands of Toledo the method is the same as that employed in the other provinces of Castilla, differently from the hounds I happened to see near La Granja..., which are smaller and stronger and more eager in huntingî; thus stating the differences between the various specimens coming from different places and regions, because the ground and the hares modify the morphology and physiology of the Galgo.
The Spanish Galgo was very famous and much sought-after for his hunting ability also outside Spain, as the writer T. de Cabarrus in his book, ëChasse et Voyageí (Hunting and Voyage 1863) writes, with reference to the English people: ìa été chercher les leviers de la Manchaî (he has been looking after the sighthounds of La Mancha).
I would like add one last quotation to my paper, taken from a ëcoplaí, namely a popular song, very famous in Spain, which says: ìHe shot a hare / He should be punished / that a hare should be mastered / by two Galgos with a collar / and if it flies away, let it go!î.
This could give a clear-cut idea of the philosophy underlining such a kind of hunting, should it be practised by friends or at an official competition, which usually takes place from October to February and culminates with the final of the ëCampeonato de Galgos en campo de su majestad el Reyí, the only event which gathers 10.000-15.000 people a day, and only for the love of coursing and for the challenge between the various ëGalguerasí Schools which take part in the competition.
However, today's history of the Spanish sighthound, a gun without bullets, in hunting and its endless chronicles and stories, will be treated in one of the next issues of the Baraka Book in a paper which I hope will deepen the understanding of such an ancient tradition, which in Spain has remained untouched by the modernity and technological development of the new coming millenium.