The Viking hook of Burgos: the legend of Princess Kristina unites Norway with Covarrubias

Hairdresser and podiatrist are offered and the brotherhood of St. Olav is looking for volunteers to teach a Scandinavian hermitage. Place of contrasts is Covarrubias (Burgos, 533 inhabitants), according to an improvised notice board when entering the town and according to history books. The Visigothic king Chindasvinto founded this town in the sixth century, the Arabs also settled on the banks of the Arlanza River and between those towers ruled the medieval count Fernán González. Now, tourists eat black pudding and kick streets of past pedigree and with a new chapter sponsored by Norway. The explanation is standing and lying in the vicinity of the collegiate church of San Cosme. Outside, a statue and a plaque recount the life of Princess Kristina, lying inside the temple and focus of national and Nordic visits attracted by a legend that connects Covarrubias with Norway. It all started in 1257 and has taken hold in recent decades.

It was the thirteenth century and the scarce international relations responded to the desire for power. Alfonso X El Sabio reigned in Castile, aware of the importance of expanding borders. So he courted the Norwegian king Haakon Haakonsson and he agreed to send his daughter Kristina to marry one of the monarch's four brothers. The maiden married Don Felipe after a long adventure of intrigues and interests, but it barely lasted four years. They gloss the chronicles that he was a victim "of nostalgia". It is believed that she died in Seville at 28, where the husband ended up as archbishop despite a more than dissolute life.

How his body ended up in Covarrubias remains difficult to answer. Bulletins of the Fernán González Foundation explain how in 1958 they opened a tomb of the collegiate church of the town and found a skeleton of 1.72 meters and details improper of the Castilian ones of that time: "It preserves complete teeth, with very equal teeth, small and fine, without caries of any kind. The thorax well developed and wide [...] the hands with short and thin fingers, long and sharp nails [...] all of which indicates to be a female skeleton, belonging to a woman of tall stature, young and strong, and of an approximate age of 26 to 28 years". The rich grave goods and these features, although without scientific evidence, invited us to think that the beautiful Infanta Kristina rested there.

The heiress Haakonsson has led to Viking imagery and Norwegian being spoken in one of the houses of Covarrubias. Oyvind Fossan, 53, arrived in the village about 12 years ago as an emissary of the Kristina Foundation of Norway, a Scandinavian entity created to promote this link. "We are proud of our princess and we have been very well received, the Norwegians are surprised and delighted because it is a Spanish destination less known than the beach," he says by phone, as he summers in Oslo and gives the house to his sister Randi, 56, mother of twins Ellen and Ida, 16, and Nikolay Mæland. of 18.

Ellen, Nikolay and Ida Mæland play guitar and sing along with Blanca Núñez. EMILIO FRAILE

The adult celebrates that Oyvind has projected Burgos in Norway to enjoy that "good place to rest in summer" between nature routes, copious gastronomy and friendly people with foreigners in a flirtatious and well-kept town. "Kristina's is a very interesting story," she says. The kids, with their bikes leaning against the wall, where Ida was reading a book lying in the sun on a bench before the talk, enjoy concerts of Scandinavian music like the one they gave with more amateur artists a few weeks ago, and improvise chords and songs before confessing their weakness. "The best thing is the sun, in Norway it rains a lot and our friends loved it," he confesses. In the hall, copies of El Diario de Burgos, where they are on the cover. The boys admit, in fluent English and with Nikolay chatting Spanish, that "it must be difficult to live here in winter", even if they do not reach the 20 below zero of their native Bergen. Blanca Núñez, 19, the boy's girlfriend, met him last summer while she was working in her family's village: "It's a very fun experience, everyone knows him here."

Local Juancho Jorge, 68, smiles. He, responsible for the brotherhood, promoted the construction of the hermitage to San Olav on the outskirts of Covarrubias, scene of Viking-style weddings and recreations of Nordic rites. "It is the mecca of the Scandinavians, Olav introduced Christianity there," he explains before the steel and wood chapel, managed by volunteers and crowned by a tower 29.7 meters high by July 29, 1030, the exact date of the saint's death.

A disparate group of 11 travelers listens to the battles before images of Olav, paintings of Kristina, models of Viking ships, shields of Castile and León and Norway or Nordic flags. "It's a shame that only five million people live in Norway," laments Jorge, because they opt for fewer potential tourists, but he hopes to reach more Scandinavian Christians or curious people in general. The fact is that buses full of Norwegians arrive more often in Covarrubias. At the end of July they celebrate a pilgrimage where locals and strangers will go to the temple to honor St. Olaf on the anniversary of his death. The plan illustrates the alliance of civilizations formed in Covarrubias: first a mass, then a popular paella followed by a championship of parcheesi and, to top it off, a recital of Nordic poetry.

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