Duende

Yendo al baile en Yegen


Me interesa la palabra duende. En su libro Al sur de Granada Gerald Brenan, que se mudó al pueblo de Yegen en La Alpujarra de Andalucía después de la guerra primera mundial, explica el concepto de duende y sigue así:

Another phrase of the same sort is tiene ángel, 'has angel', which is an idiomatic way of saying 'has charm or grace'. A person can have mal ángel as well as buen ángel --- that is, be a sinister sort of person --- and he can even be desangelado, 'un-angeled' or colourless. In addition to this he can have buena (or mala) sombra, that is, can 'cast a good (or a bad) shadow'. All these expressions, which are only partly translatable, imply a belief in a supernatural power or mana (the Moors call it baraka) which dwells in people and affects their character and capabilities, except that the phrase time duende suggests a merely temporary and occasional possession because the duende only manifests himself in moments of great emotion. In Yegen, however, we did not use this phrase: we said instead tiene solitaria. The solitaria is the tapeworm and is here conceived of as a sort of indwelling sprite, something like a leprechaun, which enables the singer to give that extra something which makes his song so deeply disturbing and poignant.