Festival of El Colacho in Castrillo de Murcia

[timr]

This is a little bit off piste, but only about 6km from Hontanas, (after Burgos along the CF). I think if I happened to be near on the right day I might make the diversion.

The date changes each year, as it is on the Sunday after Corpus Christi, which is the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which is the Sunday after Pentecost, which is the fiftieth day after Easter.

From Saturday's Guardian in UK:

Leaps of faith: the Spanish festival where men jump over babies

For 200 years, men have been hopping over infants in a tiny hamlet in the Cantabrian mountains. Why do they do it?

www.theguardian.com

 

[peregrina2000]

Great read, @timr, thanks. The sad bit that jumped out at me is that the organizers had to import babies, because none were born in the village this year. Hard to imagine that the town will survive for very long. This is such a huge problem all over rural Spain — in Villaconejos on the Lana, the hospitalero Pepe told us no baby had been born in town for the last four years.

But back to the fiesta itself — so long as they don’t let the teens who have been drinking wine for hours on end jump over the babies, I think their safety is assured.

 

[Felice]

Castrillo de Murcia - in the Cantabrian MOUNTAINS? Typical Grauniad.