Let’s face it, there is some pretty stiff competition when it comes to choosing the strangest fiesta in Spain.
There’s La Tomatina in Buñol, which involves a town pelting rotting tomatoes at each other, there’s the flour and egg battle of Enfarinats.
Then there’s Jarramplas, when villagers in Piornal pelt a man dressed in an outfit of colourful rags with hard turnips.
But by far the most outlandish is a festival that takes place next weekend in Castrillo de Murcia, near Burgos, where for more than four centuries townsfolk have been celebrating Corpus Christi in the most unusual way.
It’s a festival that should send chills down the spine of new parents, let alone health and safety inspectors, because El Colacho involves lying babies born in the last 12 months on the street so that men dressed in bizarre costumes can leap over them.
What does it all mean? You may well ask. The men dressed in yellow and red costumes represent the devil and they leap over new born babies to rid them of ‘original sin’.
Babies are brought from across the region, dressed in the Sunday best, and laid four to a mattress in the street so the devils can run and leap over them.
Those babies that survive (only kidding, they all do) are then showered with rose petals before being retrieved by their anxious parents who then go and enjoy a day’s fiesta involving dancing, feasting and of course, because this is a Spanish fiesta, imbibing copious amounts of wine!
The festival takes place the Sunday after Corpus Christi – which this year falls on June 20th.
The baby jumping part of the festivities is the culmination of celebrations but the fiesta also involves the ‘devils’ running through the streets while youths of the town shout insults at them.
The idea is to shout and run because if the devil gets close enough he will lash out at you with a horse-hair whip.
The festival takes place the Sunday after Corpus Christi – which this year falls on June 20th.
