Sunday, 6 January 2013

La Noche de Reyes


The Night of the Kings (aka Twelfth Night)  gave me the opportunity to celebrate some of the Christmas/New Year celebrations in Spain. It was always the traditional time for the giving of gifts in Spain and is surviving the adoption of the 'western' Christmas Day by the Spanish. The children aren't objecting as they may get two sets of gifts!

Cadiar was quiet when I arrived and so I took myself off for a spot of dinner before returning to the centre of town at about 9. I was aware that there was a procession through the town though its exact whereabouts were unknown. A took a stroll through the narrow streets of the town and kept getting snatched of reflected noise and the sight of the odd firework. I eventually caught up with the procession which had stopped on a hill at the western end of town.

Standing out from the crowd were the Three Kings (Melchior, Gaspar and Baltasar), each astride a horse or mule and surrounded by their own group of attendants who were trying to outdo the others in terms of the amount of noise they could generate through their chanting & singing. The thing that struck me immediately was how steady the kings' mounts were despite the tremendous din.


Each king represented a specific race. One was black, one oriental and the other white.




Their attendants reflected their 'heritage' in terms of their dress and banners and many carried either large sparklers or flaming torches and a bucket of paraffin for refuelling(!).



As the procession moved through the town, copious amounts of boiled sweets were thrown at the crowd and in to the hallways of houses as many people opened their doors. I'm led to believe that very few sweets are bought in Cadiar in the first six months of the year. Another aspect of the Kings' work is the giving of presents. Each of them ears a voluminous cloak which serves two purposes; one to hide the sack of sweets and the other to cover the transfer of gifts. The donor goes to one side of the king, loads the present under the cloak from where the king retrieves it on the opposite side and shoots the name of the recipient given to him by the donor. Although largely done for small children there were obviously a few people having a second childhood.

Attracted by a shout from a doorway, I met up with my friends Chris & Kylie and their three children. As we followed the procession (which was gathering more and more people), the children gathered sweets and the occasional bonus toy thrown by the kings. In order to make sure that we were all outside Chris & Kylie's house when the kings passed, we took a rat-run through the backstreets and arrived ahead of the first king. Miraculously(!) the king had a present for each of the children who each got a kiss from the king (plus some rubbed off make-up) and a photo-opportunity.

After retiring indoors for a glass of cava and a chance to play with Peppa Pig and her bedroom (NO euphemisms), I headed home after midnight having had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. For a youngster the evening must appear magical and the theatre was not missed on the older ones (well, at least this one).

Postscript: The evening had not quite finished with me and dishes out another treat as, starting the climb up the track, a very large wild boar came out of the undergrowth and let me follow it up the hill for a while.

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