The village of Ernes, in Negueira de Muñiz (A Fonsagrada region), almost entirely depopulated—more or less forcibly—in the 1960s following the creation of the Grandas de Salime reservoir, seemed condemned to extinction. Yet, over the decades, the decline once assumed to be inevitable was reversed. A pilgrimage of young people, eager to live far from a world whose material cruelty seemed to know no limits, settled in the houses that remained there, empty, waiting for a return that never came. In the 1990s, the laughter of children brought life back to the steep lands of Ernes; the municipal school reopened its doors; and, against all odds, the new community stayed.