Events| Folklore and tradition in Llanes

Traditional holidays of Llanes

The holidays of Magdalena the 22nd in July, San Roque, the 16th of August, and the Guía the 8th of September are events full of devotion and rites that take place along the good weather in this capital.


The three feasts are declared of tourist interest, and in these three, in some way, are hidden subliminally the land of origin and the sea, camouflaging the Catholicism. Women wear glass beads on their regional dresses. Men, with major austerity and stick on one of their hands, cheer up the rhythm of the processions and the samples of revelry that exceed the seriousness of it. Young women give to the different virgins the floral offering called "el ramu", and young men carry pyramids of breads elaborated with great care that after the offering will be sold to the public.

"The Pericote", the "Jota of Magdalena", the "Pilgrim Dance" and the "Prima Dance" are regional dances of ancestral origin. The maritime processions, on the other hand, are a faithful portrait of the relationship of local people with sea.

The folklore in the Asturian rural areas has a long tradition, but overall in the village of Llanes. "The picas" (rivalries) are really interesting. Local people are divided into groups, wearing distinctive clothes, showing passion and deep feeling in an unusual competence that paradoxically help to reinforce the collective local feeling and make these people more prosperous. In the surrounding towns there are also all kind of processions and festivities. Each town has its own nuances so, we will never find two exact processions.

"Pa joguera la nuestra". On the t-shirts of the band of Blanca, in the town of Nueva, we can read this inscription. In these processions people carry trunks of more than 40 metres long and more than one and a half ton of weight over their shoulders. In order to lift up the trunk we need to pull off three ropes, one of them is really heavy and is called the "guide rope". The "voceru" is the person in charge of coordinating this difficult maneuver. The trunk of the eucalyptus is getting right thanks to the efforts of the people holding it.

"Planting an "hoguera", "foguera" or "joguera" respecting all the linguistic variations, means to plant a trunk bigger than the neighbor town, on the main square. The size and weight of the trunk and the ceremonies around it characterise these events, establishing a competence among the commissions of festivities of the surrounding towns. Sometimes the night comes and the trunk is still not lifted up due to an error in the excavation of the hole or due to the lack of coordination. But in the end, all towns get the trunk in the middle of its squares even if it is got at dawn.

Some people think that the classical offering of "the bunch of flowers" to the virgin, "the hogueras" or the different regional dances belong to an ancestral culture difficult to set up. For the scholars of these areas, in these events there is a clear identification with the vegetal nature of these places. The dances talk about a rhythm supposedly previous to Christianity. This collective dance of circular character and chorale, usually takes place on the churchyard or around a fire. For those experts in folklore, this was the way in which the community used to fraternize.

In old times, this dance was more spontaneous and did not require any regulation space-temporal. Some researchers have found references of prohibition on the part of Church and morals of past times, assuring that these rhythms promoted promiscuity. One remain of that repression can still be observed in the Dance of Christ, in Nueva, that in other times forced young women and men to dance only held by their little fingers. This tradition is still kept in this town.

The feasts manifestations, on the other side, went though an important change with the civil war. Along the post-war the essence of these celebrations was recovered due to the lack of money. The bunch of flowers were less and the offerings were then associated with the products of the local garden.

Although, the biggest change in the folklore comes with the Latin-Americans. The current rivalries are transmutations of the personalized rivalries among Latin-Americans. Those who come back to Llanes, after making a fortune in America, wanted their feast to be the best, so they did not doubt in helping with their money. Thanks to this, they got the electric light as part of this feast, more bunches of flowers and the notable increment of glass beads on the regional dresses of women. These improvements were a goal for those emigrants who come back for good.

In the locality of Celorio, in the end of August, a singular celebration takes place: the witches’Sabbath. This celebration shows the official and popular repudiation that in old times was professed against the black magic.

As tradition tells, and some heirs of it, it is thought that in this area inhabits a strange female being, capable of talking with wolves. This was the witch of Bricia, whose steps were carefully followed by the rancor of the inquisition. The pursued woman has become a legend. It is also said that she is still alive and year after year she makes an eternal spell. This spell is thought to introduce the old battle between humans and spirits.