So it was with us in this nameless village; night found us wrapped in this glowing barn, family and stranger gathered round the long bare table to a smell of woodsmoke, food, and animals… Suddenly, one of the sons spotted my rolled-up blanket with the violin sticking out of it. ‘Mùsica! ’ he cried, and went and fetched the bundle and laid it gingerly on the table before me... There was nothing else for it. I sat down on the ground and tore drunkenly into an Irish reel. They listened, open-mouthed, unable to make head or tail of it; I might have been playing a Tibetan prayer-wheel. Then I tried a woozy fandango which I’d picked up in Zamora, and comprehension jerked them to life... ...The old man danced as if his life was at stake. While the woman was suddenly transformed, her great lumpen body becoming a thing of controlled and savage power. Moving with majestic assurance, her head thrown back, her feet pawing the ground like an animal, she stamped and postured round her small hopping husband as if she would tread him into oblivion. The dance was soon over, but while it lasted she was a woman unsheathed and terrible. Then the old man fell back, threw up his hands in defeat, and retired gasping to the safety of the walls... The sons asked me for another tune, and this time they danced together, with linked arms, rather sedate and formal. The daughter came quietly and sat on the floor beside me, watching my fingers as I played… The girl was asked to sing, and she did as she was told, in a flat unaffected voice. The songs were simple and moving, and probably local; anyway, I’ve never heard them since. She sang them innocently, without art, taking breath like a child, often in the middle of a word. Staring blankly before her, without movement or expression, she simply went through each one, then stopped - as though she’d really no idea what the songs were about, only that they were using her to be heard. << less