The Original Running of the Bulls

Each week, Gadling is taking a look at our favorite festivals around the world. From music festivals to cultural showcases to the just plain bizarre, we hope to inspire you to do some festival exploring of your own. Come back each Wednesday for our picks or find them all HERE.

Most people outside of Spain got their first glimpse of los encierros (The Running of the Bulls) thanks to the 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel, The Sun Also Rises. Inspired by Pamplona’s San Fermín festival, his novel in turn has inspired millions to visit, and even participate in, this most unusual and iconic celebration. What few people realize, even in Spain, is that Pamplona is not the only place where los encierros are performed. To experience the most historic of these fiestas with an authentic flair, head inland to Cuéllar.

The small Segovian village of Cuéllar, north of Madrid, has been hosting its own running of the bulls, Los Encierros de Cuéllar, the last week in August every year since 1499 (and possesses historical documentation referencing dates as early as 1215), a celebration which few outsiders have witnessed.

Despite the town’s modest fame, tourism from the surrounding villages can double the town’s small population over the week of the festival, giving a welcome boost to the agricultural economy.

A foreign visitor to Cuéllar, Spain, which is relatively hidden away and known only to those with a family or geographical connection, will find that the town is as interested in them as they are in it and its celebrations, and they will feel welcomed and encouraged to take part.

Want to learn more about this lesser-known Spanish festival? Keep reading below…To kick off the festival, the peñas (groups of friends) convert garages and storage spaces into makeshift dens where they can eat, drink, and gather for the week. The peñas then parade in the town square for the pregón, or opening ceremony, where the guest of honor (usually a minor Spanish celebrity) addresses the crowd and the queen of the fiesta is presented. What ensues is a heady mix of drinking, street parties, tapas (fried pig’s ear is one local specialty, exquisitely prepared by the Las Bolas cafe, Calle de San Pedro, 20), live music, and, of course, the running of the bulls.

It is the locals that make this rural Spanish festival really special and most are more than happy to indulge visitors with stories of the fiesta and the village’s history. One former fiesta queen, Cecilia, now in her late nineties, loves to share stories about strange, inexplicable happenings at the fiesta. In one of her favorites, a local man was cornered and attacked by a bull years ago and left miraculously unharmed, but stark naked.

While Cuéllar may seem like another world, travel there is simple. Daily buses from Madrid’s central station carry passengers from the capitol in 90 minutes, adding accessibility to the charm and wonder of the place known to its residents as “la isla en un mar de pinos,” or “the island in a sea of pine trees.” Want to check out this year’s festivities? Make your way to Spain at the end of August to check out this great Spanish celebration.

Baby jumping at Spain’s oddest Corpus Christi Festival

Each week, Gadling is taking a look at our favorite festivals around the world. From music festivals to cultural showcases to the just plain bizarre, we hope to inspire you to do some festival exploring of your own. Come back each Wednesday for our picks or find them all HERE.

Every year Catholic observers around the world celebrate the holiday of Corpus Christi. The festivities represent a Christian feast in honor of the Holy Eucharist. But in the Spanish city of Castrillo de Murcia, they like to do things a little differently. With colorful costumes, religious processions, mystery plays, mock terror and a uniquely Spanish ceremony that involves jumping over babies, also known as “El Colacho.”

Starting in late May or early June and lasting for five days, visitors will witness a series of rituals that are a mixture of traditional Spanish folklore and religion, each designed to cleanse evil from the little town. It works like this: a group of local men representing evil are denoted as the Brotherhood of Santisimo Sacramento de Minerva. These men are responsible for organizing the celebration. They are then split into two groups; the El Salto del Colacho (the devils), who wear brightly colored red and yellow costumes and will later jump over the babies, and the El Atabalero, who dress in black suits with large sombreros and carry large drums. Oddly enough the men who play these strange roles do so as they feel their lives have been cursed in one way or another. Taking part in the ceremonies is believed to eliminate the evil perceived to be plaguing their lives.

Wondering what happens next? Keep reading below to learn more about one of Spain’s craziest festivals.

On the chosen Wednesday, the festivities begin with the Brotherhood terrorizing the town’s people with whips and batons. Their evil pranks last till Sunday when the holy activities begin. Citizens decorate their houses with flowers and create small altars. Wine and water placed on the altars represents the blood of Christ and the baptism by water. The Eucharist symbols are meant to be consumed by the procession observers.

The procession begins, comprised of clergy and local children who are celebrating their first Holy Communion. The group starts at the church, winds around town and returns to the church. This activity is symbolic of holiness, capturing the perceived evil and laying it before God.

Finally, the festival’s most curious ritual, the baby jumping, is ready to begin. Infants from newborn to 12 months of age, dressed in their Sunday best, are brought to the street and laid in two rows on full-sized bed mattresses. As soon as the procession ends, the men chosen as “the devils” burst out of the church and run down the street toward the babies.

One by one, they jump the full length of the mattresses and over the unassuming children. The devils immediately run out of the town. This bizarre sight represents evil being cast out of the town and taking the sins of the infants with them. The babies are considered to be as cleansed as if they had been baptized. A fresh start for the newborns and another year cleansed from sin in the Spanish town of Castrillo de Murcia.

** Images courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons Project **