---
title: "Aguilando"
slug: aguilando
definition: "Asturian oral-tradition carol tied to the Christmas season, linked to the custom of asking for the aguinaldo house by house."
synonyms: ["aguilandu", "Asturian Christmas carol", "Asturian villancico"]
publishedAt: 2026-06-24
---
The **aguilando** is an Asturian oral-tradition carol tied to the
Christmas and New Year season. Historically, young men from the villages
went door to door singing aguilandos in exchange for the aguinaldo: food,
drink or money. The term connects directly to *aguinaldo*, the gift that
was asked for.

It isn't a villancico in the Spanish-language sense of the term. The
aguilando has its own festive, collective character, shaped within the
oral tradition of the northwestern Iberian Peninsula. Musicologist
Eduardo Martínez Torner collected numerous aguilandos in his *Cancionero
Musical de la Lírica Popular Asturiana* (1920), the reference collection
of **Asturian traditional music**.

The **Asturian gaita** can play aguilandos without voices: the festive
character of the piece is carried by phrasing and ornamentation alone.