by Sami Jaffer

Created on: February 12, 2009

Zugarramurdi valley of the Witches
We set off in the thick of night. The moon fat and luminous in the dark sky, shedding a ghostly light upon the fields and trees by the side of the road. We turned off the main road, winding up the mountain trail towards our destination, Zagarramurdi, a village of witchcraft.
The village is located on the Spanish side of the Basque country, France. Its history is one of repression. During the Spanish Inquisition in the 1600s the villagers were accused of practicing Pagan rituals and denying Christ as their savior. These accusations were swiftly followed by 40 people being put on trial and 10 of them being burned to death at the stake.

I had been too worried about meeting witches without some kind of protection, and so I found myself in the company of a Basque Shaman. He had studied under great Shamanic Masters for years in the United States and South America, which made me feel a little bit safer as we entered into unknown territory.
The car screeched around the last sharp corner on the trail and there in front of us stood the village. It was lit by ancient yellow streetlamps. The place was deserted. We passed through it at a snails pace, eventually reaching the sooty church in the middle of the square. Not a soul was in sight. According to it's history the church had been the base of the Inquisition, it's dilapidated state was testimony to the villages ugly memories. Even children had not escaped judgement under the iron hand of the church.
We turned around and headed down to the caves of Zugarramurdi, hoping to come across some activity of the alternative kind. An eerie silence greeted us at the locked gates at the front entrance of the caves. Luckily several days earlier I had passed through the village to make some enquiries as to the continued presence of witches in the region.
I had entered a "Tabac." The shop was tiny and consisted of a thin counter and a small selection of tobacco on the wall behind it. A little old lady, half my size entered the shop from the opposite side and greeted me warily. I began with a lame excuse of needing some matches, which wasn't really a lie as all I had on me was three lighters. Slowly I attempted to guide the friendly conversation towards the subject of witchcraft, but before I could even utter the word cave the old lady told me in a terse manner that there were no more witches in Zugarramurdi but that there were many caves around the village.
So off we went, up into the mountains behind the

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