Spain Folklore
Spanish folklore is rich and varied, with marked characteristics and also notable peculiarities from region to region: the legends, songs and in general popular music of Spain, and more particularly the dances, as well as the rich and picturesque costumes, have become well known, through romantic literature and painting, variety theater and the elaboration of learned musicians, throughout Europe. Thus was created – as has happened for other countries – a Spain of convention, mystical and sensual, gay and grim, gloomy and gallant, agitated by violent passions between no less violent contrasts of color, in which, on a background mysterious, fiery and flickering, Seville cigar makers and bullfighters dance and carousel, hidalgo, tormented by scruples and by the confessor, has locked up his daughter forever, guilty of only one glance.
Considered with greater scientific coldness, Spanish folklore attests, even today, the complex historical events of the nation. The same happens with folk tales and legends, many of which have a classical basis (such as, for example, the well-known and very widespread episode of Cupid and Psyche, or the legend of Hercules), but most of them refer to the glorious and heroic era of the Reconquest: it will suffice to recall the battle of Covadonga, Roncesvalles, the seven infants of Lara (v.) and the cycles of Bernardo del Carpio, of Peter I the Cruel (or el justiciero, as he is best known among the people), of the Catholic kings themselves and above all of the oldest and best-known hero – also, by virtue of literary elaboration, outside Spain – the Cid Campeador; and alongside these, numerous other legends, p. eg, that of the Grail. Equally rich is the popular literature of proverbs, and riddles, nursery rhymes, tongue twisters, etc., especially children. No less interesting and worthy of study are the survivals and continuations of the ancient liturgical dramas, such as the Transit y Assunpsió de Nostra Señora, which is represented inside the church, on 14 and 15 August, in Elche (Alicante) or the Entradilla de moros y cristianos(provinces of Valladolid and Valenza), the Juicio de Judas (Burgos), and others, who still represented themselves recently, p. ex. in Galicia and Catalonia, or that of the shepherds – during Advent – in Murcia: where another genre of popular theater is constituted by the juegos de manates, a kind of comedies or villerecce farces, performed as a subject on a pre-established “scenario”.
Especially noteworthy is the religious folklore. On the occasion of baptism, in Asturias, there is not only an exchange of symbolic gifts between the parents of the newborn and the godparents, but among the vaqueros that of offering bread to the first one who meets on the way, so that the child may be charitable. The feasts are celebrated with the utmost solemnity, with all forms of fun and processions or rides, dances and songs. The beginning of the carnival is announced, in Murcia and Cartagena, by an auctioneer in ancient costume, who jokingly harangues the audience from the top of a chariot; the cavalcate di Valenza are famous for their artistic character; on Ash Wednesday, in Catalonia the burial of the carnival is celebrated without masks. But the most characteristic and best-known processions are those of Holy Week, which recall the main episodes of the Passion: splendid for beauty and richness of costumes, which the brotherhoods set up in competition, those of Lorca, Cartagena, Murcia (famous for their sculptures by Salcillo), of Toledo, Salamanca, Burgos, Reus, Granata, Cordova, León, Palencia, etc.; and those, also famous outside Spain and which attract numerous foreigners, to Seville, for Palm Sunday, Holy Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with Roman soldiers, penitents and children in angels’ costumes carrying the emblems of the Passion, the images of Jesus, the Madonna and the main characters of the Passion itself, the trumpeters and singers who recite the story of the Passion, the brotherhoods such as the one called “of silence” and once the disciplined and others, as well as the music and choirs. In some places, Fr. eg, in Sant Vicenz dels Horts, in San Esteban de Bas, in Verges, and elsewhere, the procession gives rise to a veritable liturgical drama. On Holy Saturday the Cordoba, León, Palencia, etc.; and those, also famous outside Spain and which attract numerous foreigners, to Seville, for Palm Sunday, Holy Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with Roman soldiers, penitents and children in angels’ costumes carrying the emblems of the Passion, the images of Jesus, the Madonna and the main characters of the Passion itself, the trumpeters and singers who recite the story of the Passion, the brotherhoods such as the one called “of silence” and once the disciplined and others, as well as the music and choirs. In some places, Fr. eg, in Sant Vicenz dels Horts, in San Esteban de Bas, in Verges, and elsewhere, the procession gives rise to a veritable liturgical drama. On Holy Saturday the Cordoba, León, Palencia, etc .; and those, also famous outside Spain and which attract many foreigners, to Seville, for Palm Sunday, Holy Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with Roman soldiers, penitents and children in angels’ costumes carrying the emblems of the Passion, the images of Jesus, the Madonna and the main characters of the Passion itself, the trumpeters and singers who recite the story of the Passion, the brotherhoods such as the one called “of silence” and at one time the disciplined and others, as well as the music and choirs. In some places, Fr. eg, in Sant Vicenz dels Horts, in San Esteban de Bas, in Verges, and elsewhere, the procession gives rise to a veritable liturgical drama.
