and Tamarica, from the river Tamarus that flows near Compostella; a Parisian codex has also the form Carmarica. The point does not seem to be important, but it is interesting to remember that, as we have seen, area is a term used locally for a dolmen.
Thus the legend grew by constant slight accretions, until recent guides to Santiago give seriously the folk-lore tales of how the body of the apostle sailed by itself from Joppa to Spain in a stone boat or a marble sarcophagus.
One word as to the name Compostella. It seems doubtful whether this name was used before the discovery there of the apostle's body, but on the whole it seems probable that it was. Its meaning was clearly unknown at that time, for many etymological theories were advanced. Gelmirez himself admits that the place was known by various names, such as locum sanctum, Liberum donum, or Compositum telus, from which he thought Compostella to have been derived. The author of the Chronicle of Turpin interpreted the word as Campus stellarum, and to account for this added the dream of Charlemagne and the Milky Way.
One cannot close a paper on Compostella without some reference to the scallop shell, the peculiar badge of pilgrims to this shrine. It is often said that the use of these shells by pilgrims was of purely practical origin, as they were light and easily carried, and served for both platter and cup. Such a prosaic origin is probably incorrect, and in any case would not suit the myth-making instinct of the hagiographer. The story usually given by the Spanish writers is the following: "When the body of the saint was being miraculously conveyed in a ship without sails, or oars, from Joppa to Galicia, it passed the village of Bonzas, on the coast of Portugal, on the day that a marriage had been celebrated there. The bridegroom with his friends were amusing themselves on horseback on the sands when his horse became unmanageable, and plunged
