CHAPTER I

My name is Manuel Blanco Romasanta. As I sit down to write these memoirs I am about to turn forty-three. In my part of the world I am known as O Tendeiro, the salesman, but I shall go down in history as The Wolf Man. Of that I am positive. Nevertheless, the mob, the greatest simpletons, who may also be the shrewdest, will go on calling me in Galician “O Homo de Unto”, as well as “O Saca Manteigas”, the man who sucks human fat.

Regueiro lies near Esgos. It is a small place, not even a small village, located just down from the church at Santa Baia, from where Regueiro, as well as the parishes of de Sontelo and A Lama, have always been administered. My home, the same house where I was born into this world, sits precisely at the start of the road that descends from the parish church, just as you enter the small cluster of houses that make up Regueiro.

To get to Esgos from Regueiro you have to leave the village and pass directly in front of my house before taking the road that leads to A Lama. After crossing the village you go on climbing, as if you were heading towards the top of O Couso, but before you reach it you must take a left turn and descend along the main road until you reach Esgos, which is close by. Indeed, you could say that Esgos lies a little too close for comfort.

From the front of my house, if you look over and beyond its tiled roof, you can see the summit of Mount Castelo, which is somewhat steeper than the peaks nearby. I know all of them well from having criss-crossed them often, travelling in the opposite direction to that always used by the “Maragatos” when they come here from their land. As long as I can remember, the Maragatos have always come carrying their merchandise in drays, or just loaded on the backs of mules. If you go in the opposite direction from the one taken by them from the summit of O Couso, you get to A Rúa. From there you make your way to Barco de Valdeorras, and then, following the course of the River Sil, passing close to As Médulas, you enter O Bierzo. You then go through Ponferrada, after crossing Foncebadón, and you reach Val de San Lorenzo, which is already in La Maragatería. I always envied these Maragatos, and felt a deep and abiding admiration for them. Maybe it is for this, and other reasons that will become apparent in due course, that I undertook, in these, and some even more exotic surroundings, my first and one and only chosen profession. For I became a travelling salesman, a career that provided me with enough money for greater and more arduous enterprises, and from which I would ultimately become the rich man I had always dreamed of becoming. To this day I am faithful to my calling.