'Tío Francachela' fountain
Antonio Robledo, a native of Mirasierra, goat-herder by profession and wolf hunter by vocation, was born on 13 January 1826, and dedicated his life to culling the wolves in the Lozoya valley and the mountains of Miraflores, Bustarviejo and Manzanares.
He used a sack and a garrotte for his work, and his hunting season began at the beginning of June when his fellow shepherds and goatherds prepared the shepherds' huts and shelters, cleaned the springs and water spouts and gathered wood and kindling for their campfires. They would spend the summer months there while their flocks grazed, and the huts had been abandoned for months due to the seasonal migration of the flocks to warmer parts in the winter months.
Meanwhile, Tío Francachela would roam the most rugged parts of the mountains seeking out wolf traps (traditionally, pits dug into the ground) containing newborn cubs, and once he had found them he would enter naked to avoid being detected by the smell of his clothes, capture the cubs and kill them.
His fellow countrymen recognised his skill in capturing the wolf litters, and he could always be sure of a warm welcome and the attentions of his fellow herders when he stopped by their huts, so much so that he came to be fairly well-known throughout the region. A delegation of farmers managed to obtain from the regional council a lifetime pension of 80 cents a day as remuneration for his work as a wolf-catcher.
The Governor of Segovia himself presented him with a shotgun, which he never used in the exercise of his profession. He remained active up to the time of his death on 29 January 1893, from natural causes.
He was said to have killed more than 219 wolves, and a countryman of his, Isidoro Jiménez, dedicated this fountain to him, which can be seen on the way out of Miraflores, on the road to Rascafría through the Morcuera mountain pass.
The figure of the shepherd which appears on the main panel of the fountain was a common sight up until the 20th century. He is wearing the typical shepherd's outfit; a thick sheepskin jerkin, a long wool sash which not only protected the kidneys but also served to keep the tools he used for his daily chores, such as his knife, flint, and tinder to make fire, wide leather chaps tied under the knee and sturdy sandals made from raw cowhide attached with straps over woollen leg-warmers or socks made from strips of leather which protected the feet from prickly grasses and brambles.
