Well, good morning. On behalf of the channel
team, I would like to welcome you to this seventh
philological day on Christmas, entitled "Between
puppets, civilians, enebros and witches".
For me, as dean of the Faculty of Philology,
it is really an honor to be here today
to present this event, an event that was
committed seven years ago, it has been celebrated
on seven occasions, and it is an event,
not only an academic event, but also
a divulgative event that allows us, of course,
to strengthen relations between all of us.
Well, I would like to welcome you and thank the presence of the lecturers,
of the vice-lectors, Víctor Santé, Vice-lector
Laura Alba, of all the colleagues who
accompany us to this event, which is also
being recorded so that it can be broadcast
as usual, it is the methodology that we follow at the UNED.
This event is composed of trying to provide
an academic part, the study, the contribution
that several specialists can make,
several professors of this faculty around
the theme of Christmas. And in that sense,
I would like to thank the intervention of
Professor Irene Diego, the intervention of
Professor Marion Coderge, Marina Sanfilippo
and Sergio Adillo, who have lent themselves to
contribute with their knowledge and experience
to the celebration of this event.
I would also like to thank the Teatro de Títeres
Ostomila, for their participation and their willingness to collaborate.
At this institution, at the UNED, we all
work intensely, every day of the year,
we work, both the research teacher staff,
the administration and services staff,
the professor-doctor, the student representation,
and we work with a clear commitment
for the UNED, a clear commitment to support a public institution, we show
day by day a vocation of public service that I think is patented.
But we also make a university by attending to this type
of events, taking care of human relations,
and events like this contribute to getting to
know each other better, to having the opportunity
to talk, and to contribute to this university
that has, as I say, an academic aspect,
but logically it also has a divulgative
aspect, and this is part of what is going to be
discussed here today. To conclude, I would like to thank, of course,
for their assistance, but I would also like
to thank the UNED technical media for their
collaboration in the making of this event, the
technical media of Vibro, who are supporting us
with the recording, the OTOM, who has conditioned
this space so that we can be here today,
the Department of Communication, thanks Laura
for being present as a photographer, and
they have also supported us, of course, with the
issue of the signage. And I would also like to thank
the cafeteria service for their support and
their willingness to always adapt to all our needs.
Well, in this case I pass the word to Professor
Irene Diego, who is going to tell us about
what the puppets, the sibyllas, the ennebros
and the brújulas have in common with the philological spirit of Christmas.
Thank you very much Rubén. A truly difficult
question that I hope to answer in the next
three minutes before giving way to the three
speakers who generously accompany us today.
At first glance, puppets, sibyllas, ennebros and
brújulas seem to belong to very different
worlds , some in the field of play and
representation, others to liturgy, others to
vegetal imagination and others to
superstition or marginality. However, from a
philological and cultural perspective,
they all share the same symbolic space.
That of the traditions that are activated, narrated
and transmitted around the time of Christmas.
The philology understood not only as a study of
texts but as an attention to the living word,
to cultural memory and to the forms of
transmission of knowledge, allows us to observe how
Christmas has historically been a privileged
moment to preserve ancient stories, prophetic
events, liminal characters and animated objects.
In this time of transit between the old year
and the new, between darkness and light, voices
and figures emerge that connect the human with the
sacred, the visible with the invisible. The sibyllas,
with their prophetic song, represent the survival
of a textual and musical tradition that unites the
pagan and the Christian, the orality and the liturgy.
The song of the sibylla is a clear example of
how the word "antigua" is re-signified in the
Christmas framework, preserving its symbolic strength
through the centuries. The enebro, a humble and
protective tree, refers to a vegetal imaginary
full of meanings, refuge, limit, border.
In its shadow, figures such as the old women
and witches, marginal characters present in
folklore, guardians of archaic knowledge and
protagonists of stories that the Christmas tradition
has known how to preserve, sometimes in a veiled way,
sometimes in an explicit way. The puppets, for their
part, embody the animation of the inert, one
of the oldest forms of symbolic representation.
At Christmas, these figures take on life to narrate
the birth, the amazement and the continuity,
located between the child's play and the collective rite.
Thus, what unites the sibyllas, enebros and witches
is their condition of cultural mediators.
They all speak, sing, protect or represent
what tradition transmits from generation to generation.
Philology, when paying attention to them,
not only studies texts but also recovers voices,
gestures and symbols that continue to make sense at
Christmas as a space of memory, story and
shared celebration. So we share this today
with the three conferences that come next. Thank you very much.
[Applause]