David's Diary: Saturday, January 26, 2002

Saint Anthony and the Devil

Barcelona is located in the Catalunya area of Spain. This area has its own language, festivals, and traditions. Today on the Barcelona cruisers net (an informal get together on VHF radio that happens every day among the 50-60 cruisers in Barcelona) there was an announcement of a special festival taking place this afternoon and evening.

Dancing and Banging

We took the metro and navigated our way to a tiny square not far from Parc Güell. There were lots of people milling about, practising instruments, and visiting. In one corner were giants standing watching over the crowd. Before long the action started with a dance put on by teenagers. An accordian provided the music and each dancer held two small wooden batons. The dancers hit their own and their partners batons to provide the percussion to the dance. The moves were complicated as people danced in circles, squares, and other shapes while constantly swinging the batons. Some of the dancers put a lot of energy and enthusiasm into hitting their partners batons and we noticed more than one set of bruised knuckles among the participants.

During a break in the dancing the giants came to life. A person was inside each giant and they put on their own dance. These figures are well-known in Catalunya and usually come in male-female pairs with a medieval king and queen. While large and ungainly the dancers brought the figures to life and put on a slow and elegant dance.

Human Castles

Another Catalunya tradition is the building of human castles called castells. These castles can be many stories high and are traditionally finished by having a young child on the top who raises their hand to signal the completion of the castle. We got to watch as two separate teams built a four story castle. After completing the castle each team turned through ninety degrees before turning back and carefully dismantling the castle after having received rounds of applause from the audience. It was a spectacular sight, but the festival wasn't over yet.

The Devil

As the festival was winding down a number of people in red capes started running through the square shooting sparks from the tops of the sticks they were carrying. As I was reaching down for my backpack the top of the nearest stick went off in the loudest bang that I've heard from a firecracker. After jumping a foot, I snatched my backpack from a shower of sparks and retreated to a safe distance (my backpack was by the tree on the right in the picture above). As we watched more devils appeared with more sparks and loud fire crackers. We were watching the coffefoc (fire-running) where devils (and sometimes dragons) run through the streets spitting fire. Even though it was the middle of the day it was an impressive sight that we will not soon forget. I looked around for Allen, but he had retreated to the nearby playground and had his hands over his ears -- he wasn't having anything to do with fire spitting devils.

When everything was over we found a friendly participant who spoke English and told us what was going on. The festival was celebrating Saint Anthony and the Devil. The people in the blue costumes were from Barcelona and the people in red were from Menorca, one of the Balaeric Islands off the eastern coast of Spain. Our friend was part of the Menorca group who were in Barcelona for the weekend to take part in the festival. While castle building has only been practiced in Menora for the last five years, they are enthusiastic and getting better at it. Everyone certainly seemed to have an enjoyable day and we were glad that we made the effort to be spectators.