Conxuro da Queimada
The words, the recipe and the real story of the Galician spell
Midnight. The fire turns blue.
The words of the conxuro
The queimada spell, the conxuro, is recited aloud while the drink burns, when the flame turns blue. Here are the full words in Galician and translated into English.
In Galician
Mouchos, coruxas, sapos e bruxas.
Demos, trasnos e dianhos, espritos das nevoadas veigas.
Corvos, pintigas e meigas, feitizos das mencinheiras.
Pobres canhotas furadas, fogar dos vermes e alimanhas.
Lume das Santas Companhas, mal de ollo, negros meigallos, cheiro dos mortos, tronos e raios.
Oubeo do can, pregon da morte, foucinho do satiro e pe do coello.
Pecadora lingua da mala muller casada cun home vello.
Averno de Satan e Belcebu, lume dos cadavres ardentes, corpos mutilados dos indecentes, peidos dos infernales cus, muxido da mar embravescida.
Barriga inutil da muller solteira, falar dos gatos que andan a xaneira, guedella porra da cabra mal parida.
Con este fol levantarei as chamas deste lume que asemella ao do inferno, e fuxiran as bruxas acabalo das sas escobas, indose bañar na praia das areas gordas.
¡Oide, oide! os ruxidos que dan as que non poden deixar de queimarse no agoardente, quedando asi purificadas.
E cando este brebaxe baixe polas nosas gorxas, quedaremos libres dos males da nosa ialma e de todo embruxamento.
Forzas do ar, terra, mar e lume, a vos fago esta chamada: si e verdade que tendes mais poder que a humana xente, eiqui e agora, facede cos espritos dos amigos que estan fora, participen con nos desta queimada.
In English
Owls, barn owls, toads and witches.
Demons, goblins and devils, spirits of the misty meadows.
Crows, salamanders and sorceresses, spells of the folk healers.
Rotten pierced reeds, home of worms and vermin.
Fire of the Holy Company (Santa Compaña), evil eye, black spells, smell of the dead, thunder and lightning.
Howl of the dog, omen of death, snout of the satyr and foot of the rabbit.
Sinful tongue of the wicked woman married to an old man.
Hell of Satan and Beelzebub, fire of the burning corpses, mutilated bodies of the indecent, the roar of the raging sea.
Useless belly of the unmarried woman, mewing of cats in heat, matted dirty hair of the ill-born goat.
With these bellows I will raise the flames of this fire that resembles that of hell, and the witches will flee astride their brooms, going to bathe on the beach of thick sands.
Hear, hear! the roars of those who cannot stop burning in the spirit, becoming thus purified.
And when this brew goes down our throats, we will be free from the evils of our soul and from all bewitchment.
Forces of air, earth, sea and fire, to you I make this call: if it is true that you have more power than humankind, here and now, let the spirits of the friends who are away take part with us in this queimada.
Text by Mariano Marcos Abalo, written in Vigo in 1967.
Before lighting it, the table.
What is queimada
Queimada is Galician orujo (pomace brandy) burned with sugar and the peel of a lemon or an orange. Some households add a few coffee beans and others wouldn't dream of it. It's made at night in a clay pot and served hot in cuncas (clay cups).
Ingredients
Tap an ingredient to see it on the table.
Light it and stir.
How to make queimada
15-20 min burning8 cuncasGalician cooking
You need a fired clay pot and a ladle, also made of clay. There are sets made just for queimada, but any clay one will do.
Tap a step to see it in the pot.
Some people scoop the sugar from the bottom, drain it well and heat it in the ladle. Both ways work. What matters is doing it slowly and many times.
While it burns, the story.
The real story of the spell
Lots of people think the conxuro is a centuries-old Celtic spell. It has an author, a date and a city.
c. 2000 BC
Bronze Age
The petroglyphs: circular combinations, cup marks, deer and labyrinths carved into the granite, as at Mogor and Campo Lameiro. They are about two thousand years older than the castros and have nothing to do with them.
6th c. BC - 1st c. AD
The castros
What people call Celtic today. Hilltop villages, round granite houses and stones carved with wheels, triskeles and rope patterns. Whether they were Celtic is debated among researchers.
3rd-2nd c. BC
The gold of the torcs
The Burela torc, found in 1945, weighs 1,812 grams of 23-carat gold. Filigree of braided wire, with scotia-shaped ends. It is in the Museo Provincial de Lugo.
12th-13th c.
The still
Without a still there's no brandy, and the still arrived with the Arabs in the Middle Ages, just like cane sugar. That's why queimada can't be Celtic. Carlos Alonso del Real explained it in 1972.
1865-1890
The Celtic myth
The Rexurdimento (the Galician revival) builds a Celtic Galicia. Murguía publishes his Historia de Galicia in 1865, and in 1890 Pondal settles the text of Os Pinos, with Breogán, taken from a medieval Irish chronicle.
1955-2001
Queimada today
In 1955 Tito Freire makes the clay pot with legs. Mariano Marcos Abalo writes the conxuro in Vigo in 1967, adds Satan and Beelzebub in 1974 and in 2001 registers the text in his name.
The drink is medieval
Queimada isn't Celtic either. In 1972 Carlos Alonso del Real, professor of prehistory at the University of Santiago (Universidade de Santiago), explained why. Without a still there's no brandy, and the still arrived with the Arabs around the 12th or 13th century, just like cane sugar. So the drink dates from the Middle Ages at the earliest.
In the villages people drank orujo without burning it, as a remedy for colds. Queimada as a party started to spread in the sixties, and with it came the clay pots with their ladle and their cuncas, which you still see today on many sideboards and beside many a lareira (hearth).
Why people love it
The idea is to scare off the meigas (witches) and evil spirits and call in the good ones. It's done after dinner, with the lights off and everyone around the pot. Whoever makes it stirs the fire and, when the flame turns blue, recites the conxuro aloud. The text being from 1967 takes nothing away from it, because it's what people recite today at almost every queimada.
The motifs in stone and gold
Tap a motif to see where it appears.
What prowls around the fire.
The meigas and the beings of the conxuro
The conxuro opens with a list of creatures of the Galician night, and behind each one there is a folk belief. These are the ones the text names, with the verse where they appear.
Mouchos e coruxas
Mouchos, coruxas, sapos e bruxas.
In Galician tradition the barn owl, like other night birds of prey, was a bird of ill omen: if it flew or screeched near a house with someone ill, it foretold a death. That is why it was called paxaro da morte, the bird of death.
See the verseAs aves na cultura popular galega, Wikipedia (in Galician)
Sapos
Mouchos, coruxas, sapos e bruxas.
In the countryside the toad was thought to be poisonous, and its slime was said to cause blindness. On Palm Sunday the fields were blessed with the words «Sapos e ratos, bruxas e meigas, fóra das miñas veigas», "toads and rats, witches and meigas, out of my fields".
See the verseMitos e lendas galegas sobre os anfibios e os réptiles, Wikipedia (in Galician)
Bruxas e meigas
Mouchos, coruxas, sapos e bruxas.
Galician often uses the two words as synonyms, but anthropologist Carmelo Lisón Tolosana separates them the other way round from what most people think: the meiga is the one who does harm, and people turn to the bruxa to undo curses.
Trasnos e dianhos
Demos, trasnos e dianhos, espritos das nevoadas veigas.
The trasno is an invisible night imp that explains small household mishaps, like broken crockery or keys that go missing. The diaño is seen as mischievous, never as wicked as the devil.
Corvos
Corvos, pintigas e meigas, feitizos das mencinheiras.
The raven was a bird of ill omen for its black feathers, for eating carrion and for its croak. Seeing one on the road or near the house was taken as a bad sign.
See the verseAs aves na cultura popular galega, Wikipedia (in Galician)
Mencinheiras
Corvos, pintigas e meigas, feitizos das mencinheiras.
The menciñeira heals people or livestock without being a doctor or a vet, mostly with plants. Among the ailments she treats are the evil eye and the meigallo.
Santas Companhas
Lume das Santas Companhas, mal de ollo, negros meigallos, cheiro dos mortos, tronos e raios.
The Santa Compaña is a procession of souls in torment. According to the belief, a living person leads it carrying a cross and a pail of holy water, and meeting it was a sign of death.
Mal de ollo e meigallos
Lume das Santas Companhas, mal de ollo, negros meigallos, cheiro dos mortos, tronos e raios.
The mal de ollo, the evil eye, is the harm that certain people could cause just by looking, usually out of envy, and it was fought with amulets such as horns, horse chestnuts or holy water. A meigallo is a spell, usually a harmful one.
The nights of the year.
When to make queimada
Any night of the year will do, but there are dates when it never fails.
- St. John's Eve, June 23The night of the meigas and of the fire that cleanses.
- Samaín, October 31The night of the dead of the Gaelic peoples, revived in Galicia since the 90s in Cedeira, with carved pumpkins.
- Magostos, in NovemberThe chestnut festivals.
- New Year's Eve and family gatheringsWeddings and any boa festa (good party).
Put it out in time.
How to make it safely
It's fire and alcohol. With these precautions, nothing will go wrong.
Before lighting it
Tick off each item before lighting it.
All set. You can light the fire now.
Go and light itWhile it burns
- Keep your face and hair back when you stir or lift the ladle.
- Keep a lid or a damp cloth at hand, and children well away.
- Put it out with the lid after 15 or 20 minutes. If all the alcohol burns off, you're left with hot sugar water.
The embers.
Frequently asked questions
What is Galician queimada?
A drink made from Galician orujo burned with sugar and lemon or orange peel. Sometimes it has coffee beans in it.
Where does queimada come from?
It's often said to be Celtic, but without a still there's no brandy, and the still reached Galicia in the Middle Ages. The drink is medieval at the earliest.
Who wrote the conxuro da queimada?
Mariano Marcos Abalo, in Vigo, in 1967. In 1974 he added Satan and Beelzebub, and in 2001 he registered the text in his name.
What is the conxuro for?
To scare off the meigas and evil spirits and call in the good ones. You recite it aloud when the flame turns blue.
How do you make queimada?
You mix the orujo, the sugar and the citrus peel in a clay pot, light it with the ladle, toast the sugar in the flames and let it burn for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve it hot.
When is it made?
Any night, and especially on St. John's Eve (June 23), at Samaín (October 31), at the November magostos and at family gatherings.
Is it dangerous?
If you're careful, no. A clay pot, a ventilated and clear space, no pouring orujo from the bottle while it burns, and a lid to put it out after 15 or 20 minutes.
How much sugar goes into queimada?
About 120 grams for every liter of orujo. Some people use between 100 and 150, depending on how sweet they like it.
What is the queimada pot called?
A pote or olla de barro (clay pot) in Spanish, and a pota in Galician. The clay pot with legs was created in 1955 by Tito Freire, a potter from Mondoñedo. It's stirred with a ladle, also made of clay, and served in cuncas.
Do you have to recite the conxuro to make a queimada?
It's not compulsory. The drink is older than the text, which dates from 1967, but these days almost every queimada is made reciting it when the flame turns blue.
What does the word queimada mean?
Burned. It comes from the Galician verb queimar, which according to the Portal das Palabras derives from a Hispanic form *caimare, an alteration of the Latin cremare.
Before dawn.
Sources
This is where the information on this page comes from.
- Queimada, on the Galician Wikipedia. Ingredients and the medieval origin according to Carlos Alonso del Real.
- Queimada, on the Spanish Wikipedia. The history of the spell, with the dates 1967, 1974 and 2001.
- Queimada (drink), on the English Wikipedia. The tradition explained for people who aren't from here.
- Mariano Marcos Abalo, on the Galician Wikipedia. The author's biography.
- Queimada, on Turismo de Vigo. Ingredients, ritual and spell.
- Interview with Mariano Marcos Abalo in Faro de Vigo. The author tells how he wrote the spell.
- The history of the conxuro da queimada, in Nós Diario. Ancient tradition or recent invention?
- Castro culture, on the Galician Wikipedia. The castros, their houses and whether or not they were Celtic.
- Castro de Santa Trega, on the Galician Wikipedia. Round houses and stones carved with spirals and wheels.
- Castro de Castromao, on the Galician Wikipedia. The openwork triskele that may have been a window.
- Torque de Burela, on the Galician Wikipedia. The largest torc in Galicia.
- Grupo Galaico de Arte Rupestre, on the Galician Wikipedia. The Bronze Age petroglyphs.
- Rexurdimento, on the Galician Wikipedia. How Celtic Galicia was built in the 19th century.
- Queimada, on the Portal das Palabras. Where the word queimada comes from.