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- 2nd September 2010
Mallorca.
"Flaming Fiesta in Mallorca."
By: by Julia Gasper The little town of Soller in northern Mallorca looks like just the sort of place you’d go for a quiet holiday. Green hills covered with orange and lemon trees, shady gardens where bougainvillea trails across trellises, a short tram ride down to a beach with palm trees and some surprisingly perfect (imported) sand. It is close to Deia, the glorious mountain village where Robert Graves retired, and where Bob Geldof, Jason Donovan and that sort of crowd are now rumoured to hang around. It’s definitely not the sort of place where you’d find rowdy British package-holidaymakers of the “earwig” type, getting drunk and raising hell. On the contrary, all the rowdiness and bingeing here in Soller is done by the locals who, though usually calm and phlegmatic, go wild during their annual fiesta. We had no idea about this when we booked. It was pure chance that we found ourselves there on 24th August, the festival of St. Bartholomew. We were warned that there would be some sort of firework display on the Tuesday evening, so after dinner we strolled into the town square where, in front of the church of St Bartholemew, a lot of white bunting had been fixed up creating a sort of tent around the fountain. The whole town gradually assembled there, sitting on the steps or walls, or just standing in a crowd that grew to hundreds. It was rumoured that the pageant was include some sort of dragon or monster, so I wondered if this would be a St. George-and-the-dragon kind of routine. At 11pm, there was a stirring in the crowd and something was approaching. This was not, however, a dragon, only the last tram slowly winding right through the town centre, pushing the crowd out of its way. We waited until it was completely dark. At nearly midnight drums began to beat rather ominously. It got louder and louder, then came a series of explosions. The fireworks had started and they were like bombs going off. People screamed as the brilliant streaks started to fall right onto our heads. Suddenly there were bursts of fire all over the square. There were dark figures running through the crowd with flaming torches and they were throwing balls of fire in all directions. They seemed intent on setting fire to everything - the trees, the onlookers, the church. People milled around in a thrill of panic, fleeing the storm of sparks in vain. Nobody was safe. The dark figures had masks, bare torsos, and horns on their heads like devils. They hosed blazing sparks wildly in all directions from a high platform and set off fireworks from spinning contraptions that seemed designed to throw sparks and flames as far as possible. The noise and the excitement were hysterical. As I sat on the church steps, a couple of devils rushed up and seized two onlookers and carried them off. This was not so much a firework display as a blitzkrieg. Gigantic fountains of brilliance hurtled through the crowd, shrieking and dazzling the view. On and on they went, deafening and relentless. The whole town seems to have gone completely bonkers. It was berserk! Terror was clearly part of the proceedings. Anyone wimpish enough to worry about health and safety had better just stay at home. When the dragon appeared, it was a fearsome beast with a head made of a sheep’s skull and a lot of fireworks attached to its tail. It blazed its way across the square and several other creatures, on wheels or rollers, followed it. Various captives were forced by the devils to follow the dragon, some of them even put into a cage. I wondered if this was a clue to the meaning and origins of the festival. Could this be a vestige of an ancient, pre-Christian sacrificial cult? Probably it has survived because it provides an opportunity for people to let off steam in no uncertain way, and behave in a completely riotous fashion. Whether or not the victims were really sacrificed to the fire-breathing dragon, I cannot say for certain. No casualties were reported in the local paper. By noon the next day, the church square had been very efficiently cleaned up, cleared of litter and restored to its normal calm, chatty and relaxed atmosphere. You would hardly know anything had happened, except for a few little scraps of bunting still fluttering here and there. So next time you are looking for a quiet holiday, try Soller but avoid the 24th August. by Julia Gasper - 2nd September 2010 | ||
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