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‘You Have to Bear Sounds of Roosters, Donkeys,’ Spanish Village Tells Complaining Tourists

Cows on a farm near the town of Timboon, southwest of Melbourne. (Reuters)
Cows on a farm near the town of Timboon, southwest of Melbourne. (Reuters)
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‘You Have to Bear Sounds of Roosters, Donkeys,’ Spanish Village Tells Complaining Tourists

Cows on a farm near the town of Timboon, southwest of Melbourne. (Reuters)
Cows on a farm near the town of Timboon, southwest of Melbourne. (Reuters)

Some called in to complain about braying donkeys. Other tourists dialed up officials in the northern Spanish village of Ribadesella, population 5,700, to notify them of the mess left behind by wandering cows.

“Last week we had a lady who called us three or four times over a rooster that was waking her up at 5am. She told us that we had to do something,” said Ramón Canal, Ribadesella’s mayor according to The Guardian.

Officials sprang into action. What they came up with, however, likely fell short of what the grumbling tourists were hoping for: a tongue-in-cheek poster campaign that calls on city slickers to “assume all the risks” of rural life.

“Here we have church bells that ring out regularly, roosters that crow early in the morning and herds of livestock that live nearby and at times carry cowbells that also make noise,” reads the poster put up around the town in recent days. “If you can’t handle all this, you may not be in the right place,” it adds.

The aim is to bridge the at times yawning gap between urbanites and rural life, the mayor told the Spanish broadcaster Antena 3. “One needs to realize that milk doesn’t come in cartons, it comes from cows, and that you have to feed and maintain them.”

The idea for the posters came from a village in southern France, said the deputy mayor, Luis Sánchez. About two years ago, Saint-André-de-Valborgne, home to about 400 people, pushed back against petulant urbanites with posters that warned of tolling church bells, clanging cowbells and crowing roosters in the area.

In Ribadesella, the complaints were limited to a very small number of tourists, said Sánchez. But officials seized on the opportunity to make it clear to residents where they stood on the issue. “To hear a rooster crowing at night is normal. If you come to a rural hotel, you have to be aware that this is daily life in the villages,” Sánchez told the newspaper La Voz de Asturias.

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Danish Archaeologists Unearth 50 Viking Skeletons

Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford. Photograph: Thames Valley Archaeological Services/PA
Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford. Photograph: Thames Valley Archaeological Services/PA
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Danish Archaeologists Unearth 50 Viking Skeletons

Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford. Photograph: Thames Valley Archaeological Services/PA
Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford. Photograph: Thames Valley Archaeological Services/PA

The excavation of a large Viking-era burial site in Denmark has unearthed 50 unusually well-preserved skeletons that archaeologists expect will help shed light on the lives of the Nordic people best known for their seafaring exploits in the Middle Ages.

The skeletons, discovered near Denmark's third-largest city Odense, were kept intact by high water levels and favorable soil conditions that prevented them from decomposing, according to Michael Borre Lundoe, the excavation leader from Museum Odense, Reuters reported.

"Normally when we excavate Viking graves, we'd be lucky if there were two teeth left in the grave besides the grave goods. But here we have the skeletons fully preserved," said Lundoe.

"The skeletons are so amazing. They are so well preserved. There are five fingers, five toes. And that opens up a whole new set of possibilities for discoveries," he said.

Rare artifacts such as knives, glass pearls and brooches dated between year 850 to 970 were also found at the excavation, which began six months ago.

Lundoe said the grave gifts indicate most of the people were part of a small community of farmers, although a woman of higher status was buried with a silver-ornamented knife and a piece of glass which was rare in the Viking Age.

Archaeologists took soil samples to search for pollen to determine which season the person was buried in and what textiles they wore.

An x-ray of a soil block from the site revealed an oval brooch, an iconic Viking Age jewelry piece associated with women's garments, covered with wood and human remains.

On the back of another brooch with period-specific ornaments, mineralized woven textile fragments provided evidence of the type of dress worn in the Viking Age, the archaeologists said.

Most of the skeletons have been removed from the graves and packed in cardboard boxes at the museum to dry out before the examination and final cleaning.