It all begins in 1866 in the parish of Ranón, formerly the towns were divided into parishes, in a beautiful fishing village in Asturias, my beloved homeland. 

It was the night of S. Juan, in San Juan de la Arena and the most endearing of all is that a little fish would be born from Manuel Garcia and Maria Perez and will be also called Juan... Can you imagine Zacarías, in the 6th century before Christ jumping a huge bonfire announcing the birth of his son Saint John the Baptist? The Bible tells that the Angel, Gabriel, appeared to him sent by God, to announce that his wife Elizabeth, who was barren, would have a son whom he should call John. As Elizabeth was very old, he did not believe him and asked the angel for a test, as a result of his doubt, he remained silent until the prophecy was fulfilled...

Juan Garcia Perez was born on a magical night, his mother, María , broke her water in the middle of Playa de los quebrantos, just at the moment that the priest of a marine procession was blessing the waters of the Cantabrian Sea. It was still a very Christian tradition and people began to form a circle to participate in the miracle that was happening for them and to welcome a nino, as they say in Asturias, who was already sleeping on top of a blanket of black sand, where the particles of coal brought by the sea from the Nalón River, they could still heat “the little fish”, which is what María would call her son from now on. 

Juan the little fish, became a young and attractive fisherman and fell in love at just 16 years of age with Benjamina Fernandez who was 15 and who, unlike the rest of the women who worked in the fields, was a fisherwoman. Like him, it was not very well seen that the woman had the same job as the man, she was supposed to be weaker and had less strength, but Benjamina was a strong and very beautiful Asturian. What caught the attention of the entire town was as if the fish knew her and just wanted to be with her. People knew when Benjamina was near the river because an avalanche of fish would come to shore and wait for her. All this drove Juan crazy and it didn't take long for him to ask her to marry him so that it would be just for him. 

October 26, 1884, the eel fishing season began and Juan and Benjamina went fishing, it is the only way in which eels come to the surface attracted by artificial light, when suddenly Benjamina went into labor. Once again the water and the night were present in an unexpected birth. The fishermen did their best to help born Serafin Garcia Fernandez. A boy with an unusual personality, he was born in a boat "El Leré" hence his nickname and the Nalón River was his home. 

In 1885 the cholera epidemic in Spain greatly affected young women who worked at home as laundresses caring for the sick. Among them María del Carmen y pMartinez, a close friend of Benjamina, who mysteriously never got infected, and who together with her husband Manuel Alonso had a 2-year-old girl, Elvira, who grew up with Serafin and from whom she never separated. 

Elvira Alonso y Martinez was like a fairy, good, kind, a woman of sweet and delicate beauty, of medium height, with very long golden hair, her eyes shone so much that she looked like a virgin, she always danced and sang, washed in the fountains, in the streams, she dressed in white and she liked to sew a lot. Since she was little, she guarded her precious treasure with suspicion; a gold coin that her mother María del Carmen gave her along with a triptych of the Virgen del Socorro from the 17th century that appeared one day in her room while she was praying with her. Elvira drew a lot of attention in the town, she looked like a XANA from Asturian mythology and with that name she stuck.

XANA, although sometimes I like to call her by her name, Elvira, as a good Asturian, had a great sense of humor, she always played jokes and liked to annoy Serafin by hiding the fish he brought to eat, telling him that they had returned alone to the Nalón River, to to see if that would make him smile because "El Leré", as he was known in San Juan de la Arena, was a very serious man, for being 19 years old, he never smiled and smoked a pipe. 

 "El Leré" married his inseparable Elvira in the parish of San Juan. 

The guests would comment on the death of Jules Verne, or Einstein's theory, but the wedding of Victoria Eugenia of Battemberg and Alfonso XIII King of Spain, would head all the front pages of the newspapers as The Wedding of the Century! . Nobody suspected the attack that the Spanish anarchist Mateo Morrall was preparing for the wedding day, on May 31, 1906, throwing a bomb at the car in which the bride and groom were walking, from the fourth floor of Calle Mayor 88 in Madrid, camouflaged in a bouquet of flowers, the bouquet of death...

Elvira became pregnant very soon with her first daughter, whom she named Benjamina out of respect for her mother-in-law. In 1906 women used to give birth at home, it was the husbands who signed the birth certificate in the Villa de Soto del Barco and baptized the newborns a few days later. Elvira was very close to her sister Sara who moved to live with them to help her recover from childbirth since Benjamina weighed 5 kilos at birth and left her without strength. The days after the birth she ate chocolate, butter, chicken broth and plenty of wine. Benjamina inherited her incredible attraction to fish from her grandmother. 

Two years later, on August 2, 1908, Elvira was in the Nalón estuary like every day washing and singing and 9 months pregnant when her waters broke, XANA used all the energy of the water and the sun and caused Serafin at that moment pass by there with his steamer that he had given the same name as the boat in which he was born. It was very hot and XANA got into the water with the help of Benjamina who was two years old and strong as an oak. She was very dark-haired with black Indian eyes that bewitched you as soon as you looked at her and as if she were a full-fledged woman she warned her mother to be careful when pushing the baby because he would swim out…remember that her grandmother Benjamina was a fisherwoman and communicated with fish like her —Look Leré, what a blessing! We have had an eel! screamed XANA... at that moment she felt something so special that she never knew how to tell , the sensation of transferring all her powers to her daughter, since God wanted her to be born in the water as a true XANA. But she would only be a real one the day her mother Elvira died. 

María del Carmen García Alonso was born, this time the moment that XANA had been waiting for so long, arrived, to give her daughter the name of her mother, María del Carmen. A strong baby like Serafin, and even more beautiful than her sister. That same day she was baptized as Carmina and her mother gave her the miraculous triptych of the Virgen del Socorro that will accompanied her for the rest of her life. That day it was born a saying that today after more than a century, is known in San Juan de la Arena;  

“There are two things in the Arena that you cannot miss, the beauty of Carmina and the pipe of Leré…”

Serafin, after seeing Carmina's beauty, smiled for the first time in his life and was never serious again. It seems that a prophecy had been fulfilled. 

XANA was destined to give birth every two years. That afternoon she was alone with her sister Sara, who still lived with them. The book of Genesis says that her original name was Sarai, but that God changed it to Sara before allowing her to have a son at the age of 90. Sara couldn't have children and she dedicated her life to taking care of her nieces and helping her sister. And Serafin destined to be surrounded by beautiful Asturian women. 

Carmina, when she was only two years old, played escaping into a fountain and was amused when her sister, Benjamina, went looking for her, but that day she was more mischievous and changed the fountain. Between the scare because Benjamina could not find her and the fact that they had been milking cows all morning, the delivery was brought forward. Sara hurried to prepare wine boiled with cow fat to help her give birth. As soon as she saw another girl being born and saw what was the same as her when she was little, she asked XANA for a wish, to give her name, and she granted it. She later gave the baby a white quartz stone, a symbol of strength, nobility, purity and innocence and welcomed her in her lap as if she were her own daughter. What she never knew is that on her birth certificate, Serafin, supposedly made a mistake and registered her as Rosario . Sara was the one who physically resembled her father the most, however she would like the countryside, being a day laborer, walking through the meadows and having horses. 

Years passed and the family grew, XANA gave birth to another girl and in the same house, this time surrounded by her three daughters; Seven-year-old Benjamina who brought her a "Campanu" which was the name of the first salmon caught on the third Sunday in April and the reason why all the churches rang their bells. Carmina, 5 years old, sewed a huge shawl with the gold thread that XANA had given her and wrapped her around many times so that she would not get cold, and Sara, 3 years old prepared a basket with different cheeses and blueberries. At that moment he was returning from a trip "El Leré" when XANA told him— Here you have your last princess, the queen abdicates! she was her fourth daughter and she would name her like her. Elvira Garcia Alonso. 

It was 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic was raging, killing millions of people, but fortunately XANA's daughters were pure-bred Asturians and were never sick. 

Although Alfonso XIII believed that Spain was not prepared in any way for a war and was neutral, the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War in June 1919 was great news and the "Leré" family began to celebrate it to prepare a trip to Ribadesella to coincide with the eel fishing season. 

Carmina completely changed Serafin's life, they never separated, Serafin crossed the sea every day to take her to school in San Esteban de Pravia, a parish in the Asturian council of Muros de Nalón and pick her up. Carmina spent her trips sewing a blanket with her gold thread and said that it would serve to save a sailor from dying of cold, but that if the thread broke, he would sleep in the depths of the water forever…Carmina was already sensing the future . She was a tall, warrior-like 9-year-old woman with very long curly honey-colored hair and a prominence in the middle of her forehead that gave her an overwhelming personality. She sensed the storms and knew the sea more than her own father. As a good Asturian, she always carried the pitcher of water on her head, but on that July 16, which was celebrated the Virgen del Carmen, the star of the seas that protects sailors and fishermen, the pitcher fell on the sand, before the watchful eyes of her sisters and parents who immediately knew something was going to happen. 

Carmina seemed very restless, XANA looked at her as only a mother knows how to do it, and it was the first time she called her Carmela, she approached her, hugged her, told her the story of Mount Carmel in Jerusalem that the Old Testament tells and for now she calmed down.

But the fishermen were only talking about the steam liner that would leave Cadiz on August 3, the day before Carmina's birthday, heading for America. The war had left a lot of misery and many Spaniards were looking for a future that their country did not give them. Among them were 2 young friends of Serafin who had decided to embark on the Valbanera, which would arrive on September 10 at its final destination, Havana. Carmina ran up to his father and his friends crying, saying that they could not leave San Juan de la Arena and their families, that the Virgin of Socorro had announced her and that the ship would never reach its destination. One of them, who was a great believer, did not doubt for a minute what the girl said. He witnessed Elvira's birth in the water and knew that she was blessed, and thought there would be more opportunities. The other fisherman embarked the next day for Cádiz, a long trip awaited him… The Valbanera, owned by the Cádiz shipping company Pinillos, entered an unusually powerful tropical cyclone on September 9, near Key West, in Florida, and capsized loaded with 500 Spanish emigrants. One of the worst disasters in maritime history in peacetime. 

Two months later they had to head to Ribadesella, they had been preparing the trip on which the whole family would embark, including aunt Sara, and they were preparing the provisions. XANA tried to encourage her youngest daughter who thought she was going to travel the world and she was very worried that her father would not catch the plague of the sea, the disease of scurvy, which due to a serious lack of vitamin C, affected your mouth causing bleeding in the gums thus losing the teeth and more than three million sailors died. So Elvirita filled a huge bag with oranges and lemons... Carmina, who was already woman, called her mother and sat her down next to Serafin, announcing that it was not a good night to go out together and that he should go alone and take the white sheet she had sewn to save the sailor from the cold. Serafin was carried away by the premonition of his daughter and went to sea. That same night, on November 15, 1919, he saved in Ribadesella the crew of the S. Roque II that had been shipwrecked. 

Two years later, Mr. Serafin Garcia Fernandez, patron of the steamer El Leré, received from the Spanish Shipwreck Rescue Society, issued in Madrid and signed by Queen Victoria Eugenia of Battemberg, the medal of honor for the rescue of the crew members of the S. Roque II.