The pilgrimage with which Yerma ends is inspired by that of the Cristo del Paño de Moclín (Christ of the Cloth of Moclín) (a village located at the eastern end of the Granada region of Loja province). The pilgrimage dates back to the 17th century and is still celebrated every October 5. A human stream climbs the hill where the hermitage stands venerating the rather rough canvas of the Cristo del Paño to ask for favors of all kinds.
The legend about the bacchanals, orgies and pagan rites in which the pilgrimage ended at night, caused a bad reputation that even led to its prohibition by the Franco regime. In the family house in Valderrubio, the García Lorca family kept a lithograph of the Cristo del Paño, very popular in the Vega despite its heretical dissonances, which must have inspired Federico. For Francisco, it was an expression of popular inventiveness, but for Isabel, it was a pilgrimage “full of scandal, of violence”. Both confess, however, that they were never there.
