Leaping over bonfires

Today, or more correctly tonight, is la noche de San Juan, St John's Eve, a festival celebrated by lighting bonfires, letting off fireworks and grilling and eating sardines in the streets. There are, however, a few problems this year as the sardine catch has been poor and so grilled sardines will be more expensive. Also some places are restricting their bonfires because of EU regulations as they want to keep their beaches' bandera azul status. Fewer sardines and fewer bonfires!

I first experienced la noche de San Juan quite accidentally a couple of years ago when I brought a group of sixth form students to La Coruna on a visit which coincided with the festivities. One of my students, concerned for his rather baggy trousers, came to tell me that his exchange partner said he had to jump over a bonfire. Was this true? I assured him that it was not obligatory and that I would really prefer him not to do so as I had signed insurance documents saying that the students were not going to take part in dangerous sports!

But jumping bonfires is a part of la noche de San Juan and la Coruna's Riazor beach is one of the best places to see the fun.

Apparently this dangerous activity (the local free paper gives advice on what to do if you catch fire: do not run! throw yourself down and roll on the ground!) ensures you good fortune for the coming year. What's more, if you have something you wish to forget, you can write it on a piece of paper and throw it on the bonfire: instant amnesia! Unmarried people can look out of their window as June 24th dawns and see the love of their life go past. I have not found any guarantee that thelove of your life stops and notices you!! However, getting up early to do that guarantees that you will not be tired all year.

Washing in the dawn dew on June 24th is said to protect you from evil for the coming year. Some say that washing your face at dawn with the water in which various herbs and wild flowers have stood overnight is even better and is also good for the complexion. And yes, I have seen people walking along with large bunches of the correct wild flowers, on sale in various florists. Offered the chance to do this during my San Juan visit to La Coruna, I declined. Somehow, old flower water does not appeal to me. I'll stick to my beauty products.

And then, there are the witches. Galicia has benevolent witches, meigas, as well as the bad kind, brujas. Many places choose a local beauty to be chief meiga for the noche de San Juan. A cartoon in the local free paper shows that some people believe that all girls are meigas on St John's eve while others believe that certain girls, expecially ex-wives or girlfriends, are brujas all year round.

Of course, the whole thing is connected with the summer solstice. In Britain, stonehenge and celebrating the solstice has been taken over again by would-be pagans to a large extent. Here though, the pagan ritual continues to be subsumed into Christianity. Conveniently it seems that John the Baptist was born on June 24th and his father lit a bonfire to announce the event.

Meanwhile, this morning in Vigo, preparations were underway to build a bonfire in Berbes Square, one of many places to organise a celebration.

There will also be bonfires on Samil beach and Vitrasa, the Vigo bus company, has kindly extended its bus service from the city to the beach into the small hours of the morning to allow people to get there. Community cooperation in action!