With the cold of winter, an afternoon when the streets were covered in fog, I read, accompanied by the silence of the sunset, the book of Anxel Fole (1903-1986). I believe that some stories require an environment conducive to being read and told. This is the starting point of the fifteen short narratives that make up the collection of stories Á lus do candil (Á lus do candil), written by the Galician writer in the light of his Candil.

South of Lugo is the wild territory of Caurel, where the writer lived. The owners and servants living in a 14th-century tower house start to whisk by the fire waiting for snow to act as a presence. Through anonymous storytellers, Folk tells us the stories that Caurel’s popular tradition has kept and, at the same time, adds others that he himself has invented. One of the most noteworthy particularities of this book is the ability that the author has demonstrated to preserve both the traditional freshness and spontaneity of the oral tradition also in writing. In addition to making the reader a listener, he becomes a witness and participant of the story that is narrated in the light of the lamp and the place, through the formulas of closeness and complicity that the narrator constantly uses. The noise produced by the snowflakes of the

exterior when they collide in the glass of the window, the howls of the wolves that traverse the mountains, the weak light of the interior or the mysterious presence of the wind, prepare us to open the doors to the world of imagination; witches, ghosts, dead and, in general, objects of profound symbology (letters, portraits of the dead, writings, mirrors...) appear. Some stories present a final milestone (Anton de Cidran or the Dead spoke in Spanish) and others, especially those who have an expressive dream, talk about the strength of the human unconscious, offering the possibility of different interpretations (Arxemiro, Aleluia! or mirror).

Silence is absolute. You only hear an isolated noise. It's the Anxel Fole pen, in the light of the lamp, that speaks to us.