THE FALLAS
My daughter told me , she is taking her children this year to the ‘ Fallas ’. Fair enough , it is part of their heritage as children of a man from Valencia , and the Fallas have also since 2016 UNESCO ‘ World Cultural Heritage of Humanity ’ status .
I had always thought they were a kind of Carnival and therefore one expected them to be in February , but no , they are in the middle of March . They are a traditional celebration held in commemoration of St Joseph in the city of Valencia , whose patron saint he is .
Now , St Joseph ’ s day is the 19 March . Usually a Saints day is the day associated with the death of a saint , but since nobody knows when and where St Joseph died , the church pronounced the 19 th of March as his day . St Joseph is also the patron saint of carpenters , maybe that is why the Fallas are associated with him , since the ‘ Fallas ’ are not only the name of the festival , but also the name of the wooden structures which are carried around the city in procession and are burnt as part of the festival .
Each part of the city has an organised group of people that works all year round building their ‘ falla ’ and holding fundraisings for their part in the procession . Artists and craftsmen spend months preparing their construction from wood , paper , wax and polystyrene foam . The structures are up to 5 stories high and usually represent some satirical scene of local or national politics . That is why they were banned during the time of the dictatorship of Franco . At the festival during 5 days of continuous street parties and multiple processions , people wear medieval costumes , and there are continuously fireworks and noisemakers in the streets . On the final night of the festival around midnight of March 19 the fallas are burnt in huge fires .
The festival is said to be of medieval origin , the burning explained by the habit of artisans disposing of their broken leftover wood . Carpenters are said to have used wooden structures to hold the candles which lit up their workshops during winter and are not needed in the spring . Yet the festival is probably much older and , like bonfires at St John ’ s night , represents some pagan ritual , here to welcome spring . The Church has refashioned it into some Christian festival by associating it with St Joseph .
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