"Sometimes we ask ourselves what scientific truthfulness certain practices of the elders of the field possess when they use the phenomena of the celestial vault. The most daily agricultural and livestock activities are influenced by the rhythm imposed by the stars; and the most deeply-rooted festivities, customs and traditions of the Canary Islands are astonishingly related to astronomical phenomena.

El Cielo de los Magos is an attempt to define the extent to which heavenly events can characterise life in the countryside. In this work, shepherds, farmers and stockbreeders of the islands become narrators of their coexistence with what happens above their heads. The times of ploughing, sowing and harvesting or weather forecasts find an explanation in the appearance of certain stars in the firmament throughout the year; and the festivities and traditions of the peoples have their raison d'être in beliefs and myths related to the stars, forming a calendar of festivities and celebrations. The authors of the book, IAC researcher Juan Antonio Belmonte and Margarita Sanz de Lara, collect the testimonies of shepherds and farmers of Teno Alto, Adeje, Pozo Negro...etc, with which they compile a series of affirmations, anecdotes and curiosities that faithfully describe the essence of popular knowledge and the complicity that the peasants jealously guard with the events of the sky.

The correspondence with their peasant activities, the numerous names that the locals attribute to the stars and planets and the manifest fear of the interviewees, for the extinction of this knowledge with the sunset of their lives, deeply mark the reading.

A work in which astronomy, the wisdom often ignored by the elders and the contemplation of ancient customs that have their reflection in the Sun, the Moon and the stars, go hand in hand."