Spanish Sundown

Every spring in Spain, the pine trees are covered in nests the size of a fist with the texture of a rotten cobweb. Out of these nests come caterpillars, called processionaries.

These caterpillars are poisonous. Their hairs provoke a rash that can last for several days.

This rash spreads. Like a poison.

In today's episode, Estrella is ridding her backyard of these pests. When her shovel strikes an owl skeleton, she travels back to 1970s Robledo de Chavela, when the town was held terrified hostage by a ghost in the medieval church cemetery.

A cemetery overrun by processionaries and their poison.

Estrella discovers that the poison doesn't just spread; it becomes a part of you.

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1-See the bio of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, nature expert and journalist, here.

2-Here's a link to Robledo de Chavela on the map, where our story takes place.

3-Check out Spanish Sundown’s webpage or our Facebook or Instagram accounts for footage of Robledo de Chavela, the church where the owl hid, and processionaries in my own backyard (ew). While you're there, join our community; I love hearing from you!

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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

Spanish Sundown has been shortlisted for the 2026 UK International Audio Drama Festival! Playing with 26 countries, 16 languages and 60 dramas. Uh...how cool is that?!

You can see the full list and listen to all the fantastic shows here.

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While we're on the road, check out one of my favorite shows: Lore & Crime.

You can subscribe on the show's website, on Apple, Spotify or Amazon.

Follow Lore & Crime on Facebook and Instagram.

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Remember to check out Spanish Sundown’s webpage, Facebook and Instagram, where you can also join our online community.

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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

2,000 years ago, indigenous Celtic Vettons inhabited the Iberian peninsula. They carved statues of bulls and wild boar made of stone, many of which can still be found today. And they participated in religious rituals involving what we would call magic mushrooms.

When the Romans swooped in, they burned and sacked the Vettons' villages.

Do you always root for the underdog? What if the underdog...stops being the underdog?

Warning: this episode leans heavily into the horror.

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1-See a map of ancient Vetton territory, a reconstruction of their village and the verracos here.

2-The most famous verracos are in Guisando (Ávila). Check out the site's official IG here.

3-Look at my own pictures of the verracos I took while recording and researching the episode. You can see them on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook or Instagram, where you can also join our online community.

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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

Every year, the villagers in the remote mountain town of Navalosa in the province of Ávila dress as cucurrumachos for Carnival. They don loud cowbells and wooden masks with curved bull horns that sprout from the temples.

A fun game. Cucurrumachos don't really exist, after all.

Dani is lonely. Like a quicksand sinkhole in his gut, his loneliness consumes him from the inside out.

When Dani puts one of these bull horn masks on, it takes him back to 12th-century Spain. He meets the maker of the mask, a man from northern Spain who immigrated to Navalosa to repopulate the region after King Alphonse defeated the Moors.

This man shows Dani that cucurrumachos are real. He teaches Dani how to cure his loneliness.

A terrible, terrible cure.

Because once you call the cucurrumacho...it never leaves.

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1- See the location of Navalosa here.

2- Check out the Máscaravila webpage, the association that promotes this cultural tradition in many different villages all around the Gredos mountains in Ávila. If you're in the area during Carnival, right before Lent, you can see it in person.

3- I took some crazy video and photos of the festival while researching and recording for this episode. Still haunts my dreams. You can see it on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook or Instagram, where you can also join our online community.

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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

In 1915, Count José María del Palacio y Abárzuza stole a statuette of St. James the Greater from the grave of 15th-century Spanish royalty. In 1969, this figure appeared in the New York Met Museum.

How did it get there? The answer lies with the Count’s mansion: Beak Cliff House, or Palacio del Canto del Pico.

In today’s story, we meet David. David is a nice guy. Too nice. In a world where everyone always feels entitled to take, he gives.

When his snotty boss makes him hide a mysterious USB drive from the police, he embarks on a mission of corporate intrigue that takes him straight to the Count’s abandoned mansion.

There, he finds a statue of the Virgin Mary. The voices trapped inside show him the fate of the stolen Spanish artifact and introduce him to the Count, a weird little American man named Arthur Byne, and even William Randolph Hearst.

He stops giving.

Because David is entitled to take, too.

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1-A link to the New York Met page showing the catalog entry for the statuette of St. James the Greater, currently in the museum’s possession.

2-The official webpage of the Carthusian monastery in Miraflores where they recount the theft.

3-The location of Beak Cliff House or Palacio del Canto del Pico up on a cliff in Torrelodones, Madrid.

4-A picture of Arthur Byne with his weird little beard thing.

5-A picture of the Count as a young boy.

6-Los prodigios de Gillingham by José Francisco Rodil Lombardía. Our mansion, stolen loot, bribes to Francois collaborators and Nazi colluders all appear in this novel. See a summary here.

7-Check out video of the creepy mansion I took while recording and researching the episode. You can see it on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook or Instagram, where you can also join our online community.

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Subscribe to listen to friend podcast Counterbalance here! You can also check out their Facebook or Instagram.

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© 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.