Goosed!

In its journey through the city of Logrono, the Way passes the Church of Santiago, on the spot where St. James was said to have preached in the first century AD. It’s a lovely place, and near a good fountain for filling water bottles for the journey, 

but in the plaza to one side was a life sized boards game inlaid in the  stone, the game of Goose. In fact the Goose game was originally in place here even before the church was built in the 9^th century, although the current church was built in the 15^th.

So what is this game in such an important location? It is an ancient board game in which players roll dice to move in a spiral, past 63 spaces with different pictures on them, including several with a goose. Depending on which square you land on, you go forward or backward or miss a space or go back to the beginning, not unlike other board games throughout history.

However, this game, with its wells and labyrinths, also includes pictures that represent different stages of the Camino: Burgos, Sahagún, León, Ponferrada, Melide… among others.

The game starts in Logroño and ends in the tomb of the apostle Santiago, each square depicting the many stops of the French Way we are travelling. The anonymous bridges of the original Game are illustrated here as the real bridges we cross in Puente la Reina in Navarra and in Puente Órbigo in the province of Leon. The labyrinth, the square that always made us lose our turn, is here represented by Las Medulas of Leon.

This incarnation of the game was installed in 1991, and huge dice were added for effect (and to sit on), but this replaced an earlier one and so on. Despite the various theories of the origin of the game, the one that seems to sticks is that it was created by the Templars in the 12th century, using the Way of Saint James as a source of inspiration. It is said that in the board of the game, full of esoteric motifs, the Templars concealed their knowledge behind complex and mysterious codes. It is believed that this ‘board’ was a guide to the pilgrimage route for those still not initiated in the order. So the game could be seen as a metaphor for those pilgrims to overcome obstacles of the Way to be able to reach their goal.