Saint Bernards in the Great Step
Brown cheese. Question: Breed of dog that corresponds to the name of a saint. Answer: “Sanmoyedo”. Pocker-face. We are playing Trivial, but the expression of the rest of your opponents is, at least, that of the Texas champion. True. Obviously the solution to such a complicated question is not that, but rather: Saint Bernard. But now comes the second question. Why Saint Bernard? Where does such a blessed name come from to baptize a dog?
To answer it we have to travel to Switzerland and go back many centuries , specifically to the year 1050, and to follow the trail of Bernardo de Menthon, archdean of Aosta (Italy), who belonged to the Cistercian order, specifically to the Trappists.
At 2,473 meters, between Aosta and Martigny (Switzerland), was the pass of Mount Jupiter, a border crossing that meant an important route of European communication (and, of course, of smuggling) . For him throughout the centuries celebrities as famous as Red Beard, Stendhal, Vittorio Emanuelle III, Alfonso XIII and Napoleon himself passed by , of whom the intrahistory tells that he did it sitting on a toilet. With temperatures sometimes down to minus 20ºC and records of snow levels of 20 meters, the crossing was not exactly a piece of cake and there were many possibilities of falling by the wayside (in fact, more than fifty corpses are still preserved that were never claimed). ) .
The Saint Bernards do not carry out rescue work at present
This is where Saint Bernard appears. At that time, only Bernardo, who decided to build a hospice to help travelers regardless of whether they were rich or poor or whether their intentions were just and pious or bandits. He was joined by a community of monks, who came to the rescue on stormy days. They treated the injured, gave them hot food and let them sleep under a covered roof. On many occasions it was difficult to locate them due to avalanches, so the monks began to use the Barry dogs (as Saint Bernards were known then), of great help for his strength and his sense of smell.
The hospice managed to save the lives of hundreds of people, and would continue to do so for centuries; so much so that finally the name of the step as well as the breed of dog would be changed to Saint Bernard. The hospice is a place of double pilgrimage : on the one hand because there is the mausoleum of General Desaix, one of Napoléon's favourites, who fell on the way and which many French people come to see. On the other, because the Gran Paso de San Bernardo is the Roncesvalles of the Via Francigena, a route that goes from Canterbury to Rome and follows the journey of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sigeric the Serious in the year 990, when he went to the holy city to receive the episcopal pallium from Pope John XV (and of which, without a doubt, we will begin to hear more soon because are full of their promotion).
To this day, the main door still does not have a lock, in fact, it is said that it is the only place at more than 2,500 meters open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for more than 1,000 years. His monks continue to receive pilgrims or mountaineers (who do not have to pay) and travelers, who come, this time yes, of their own free will, and they sleep in collective dormitories, for around 40 euros, dinner included . They can also take part in religious services, which are held in the little chapel, known as the “Sistine of the Alps”.
In the hospice there is also a small museum that collects the history of the place: from the first archaeological remains of the Roman period to the botanical and mineral collections of the monks, the library or a recreation of what the houses were like at the time... and , of course, a part dedicated to dogs, with the stuffed body of Barry III, in which you can see how the race has evolved . Especially if you then go through the next door, the one that leads to the kennels of the Barry Foundation , where they live 27 bitches and 6 dogs that are, to a great extent, the ones in charge of preserving the pedigree.
Homer, Eva, Salsa... are the names of these animated stuffed animals, but there is always a Barry, who gives his name to this non-profit foundation, and who pays tribute to the most famous of all the dogs that have passed through here: Barry I, who lived between 1800 and 1814 and saved more than 40 lives (The honors that the Swiss people grant him are such that he is dissected and exhibited in the Natural History Museum in Bern).
Currently the work on the San Bernardos mountain is no longer such. It has been replaced by helicopters, but, as a tradition, one of the pups is trained as an avalanche rescue dog. The rest learn other "professions" and work as postmen, messengers, or are used for therapeutic purposes, visiting homes, social institutions or schools where they instill respect for animals. They also learn tricks and go for walks in the mountains with the children who come to visit them.
Only the story of the barrel remains. Sorry to break it to you: Barry is not short for barrel and the St. Bernards of the Foundation don't have one hanging either. It has never been like this. Neither now nor in the past , because, despite popular belief, doctors absolutely do not recommend giving alcoholic beverages to a person with hypothermia. One of the theories of the origin of this iconography is the painting Alpine mastiffs reviving a traveler in distress , by Edwin Landseer (1802-1873), where, as a note of color, the pinto added a barrel to the box mountain mastiffs. Truth or myth? That's another brown cheese question.
The barrel is a scam but it suits them