El Oso y el Madroño

This guide to El Oso y el Madroño in Madrid opens with the odd habit of rubbing the bronze bear's heel for luck, a tradition nobody can trace to any old legend or decree, then traces the statue itself back to a medieval land dispute between the city council and the cathedral clergy. You'll hear how the settlement put a bear and a strawberry tree on Madrid's coat of arms centuries before sculptor Antonio Navarro Santafé modeled this 1967 bronze on a real captive bear at the Retiro zoo. The statue has moved more than once, and always ends up back here.