Catalan Folklore

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go back to Main Page, Getting started or Miscellaneous; curiosities and funny stuff, Tarragona


  • Sant Jordi (Book Day and St. Valentine's here): [1] [2], [3], [4]. The legend and origin of the red rose tradition: [5]

And we can forget sweets! It’s quite a new thing but now you can buy rose-shaped lollipops, heart-shaped cakes or the more traditional St Jordi’s cake [6] or bread [7] both with the colours of the Catalan flag.

http://www.cccc.cat/galeria-multimedia and http://www.collajove.com/index.php

  • Castanyada ("Halloween" equivalent): La Castanyada is a popular festival in the Catalan Countries, especially in Catalonia. All Saints' Day has always been celebrated, although recently it is common to move the celebration to the eve of this day, the evening of October 31. Like the Halloween of the Anglo- Saxon countries, or the Samhain ( Celtic New Year ), the Catalan "Castanyada" originates from an ancient funeral ritual celebration. It consists of a meal in which chestnuts, sweet potatoes, marzipan balls and candied fruit are eaten. The typical drink of Castanyada is muscatel (sweet) wine. Around this celebration, the "castanyeres" (chestnut vendors) sell roasted and hot chestnuts on the street, usually wrapped in little pieces of paper or newspaper cones.

In Catalonia there's no festival without sweets, so in October bakeries start selling "panellets", these are marzipan-based sweets with nuts or dried fruit. Now you can also find them in several flavours: coffee, chocolate, lemon… You have to try them!!!! (Warning: they’re hypercaloric and expensive) You have to try them!!!! https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitxer:Panellets_(surtido).jpg

"La Castanyera" is usually represented with the figure of an old woman dressed in poor clothing and a scarf on her head, in front of a chestnut roaster, selling in the street. They used to wear very wide and lined twill skirts, with a hemp and wool apron. On their head they could also wear a white woolen hood, very long, which reached below their mid-skirt, tied around the neck and waist. They used earthenware stoves similar to a cauldron. In Tarragona, high schoolers and some NGOs put stalls on the streets and roast and sell chestnuts and the profits go to funding their end-of-school trips or charity.

https://unexpectedcatalonia.com/the-castanyada/

Lab's easy version of the pooping song:

Caga tió!

avellanes i torró,

si no cagues fort,

et donaré un cop de bastó!


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