The legend of Sant Jordi
On Sunday was a very busy and beautiful day in Barcelona.
It was 23/04/2023 Sant Jordi’s day (La diada de Sant Jordi).
In order to explain you a little bit about this story, I have researched where does it come from. The legend dates back to the XIII century, spread by Lacopo da Varezze, and it’s a little different from the Catalan version.
I will tell you, the legend from popular culture that has been shared to me year after year from my childhood.
As the tradition says, it all started in Catalan land, a ferocious dragon took up residence at the top of Montblanc, terrorizing the civilians of the town.
The dragon, killed and swallowed the flocks and threatened the village. The bravest knights tried to kill it, but the dragon easily defeated them.
For the first few months, the King found a way to protect the townspeople by feeding the dragon with the town's livestock.
This deal could only last for so long, until they had to start randomly drawing lots for people to be sacrificed so that the dragon would not tear the town apart.
In front of the village, the innocent hand of the princess took a a random paper among others, to guess who would be the unfortunate.
It was her name on the paper! so she would be the chosen one to die in hands of the dragon.
The hours passed and she admitted her luck, saying goodbye to loved ones.
Once she was in hands of the dragon, a brave knight appeared riding a white horse.
She asked him not to risk his life for her, she had accepted her duty to protect the town.
But the knight decided to go into battle to save her. The fight was long, but finally Jordi plunged his sword into the heart of the dragon, and the reddest blood they had ever seen came out of his heart, and turned into the most beautiful roses they had ever seen.
Jordi took a rose and gave it to the princess to show his love and respect.
He then, had to leave to continue helping other populations. But the princess asked him to go down to the village together to show their victory.
Surrounded by applause and shouts of admiration, the people welcomed them with love. With that distraction, the princess separated from Jordi for a moment.
Moments later, she returned and gave him a book as a way of thanking him.
Saddened by their separation, this is how Jordi saved the village from the ferocious dragon.
This is the version from my childhood, but there are plenty of them.
Some of them say that the first people to be chosen to die were the maidens of the village. And after this, many comments have come about the ideals of the story and why a rose for her and a book for him.
Well, here is my opinion, this is my favourite celebration of Catalunya, I love to share roses with my friends and loved ones, but mostly I buy the plant and give a book to my partner and receive a book from him, and roses :P
It’s a reminder of love, care and beauty. I find it so beautiful to create special days to purposely share things with people we love. Because we tend to forget about details with our busy schedules.
No need to make it commercial, sometimes we have created paper roses or we went around just to observe the beauty of the planted ones, there are plenty of ways.
“it is not necessary to kill a dragon to read a book, neither tearing off rose to say “I love you”
By Jaume Montserrat
It has become a commercial celebration, it is true, but there are many places were they use the opportunity to collect money for associations in need, or teenagers that finance their school holidays with it. Which is a beautiful way to contribute.
Here I am sharing some of the photos I could collect this year.
A small neighbourhood shop getting full and getting ready for the day:
The small shops at the streets:
Even the airport had roses!
This is me giving a black rose to my childhood’s friend Judith at the airport were she is working atm.
Finally, I want to share the photo from casa Batlló, which is one of my favourite things to see this day. But this year I couldn’t go to the Passeig de gracia because the city was collapsed..
Photo from Oriol Federico
And this were my roses!! @growandbow came to pick me up at the AirPort and surprisingly I got home and I found a beautiful bouquet of roses waiting for me.
Have you ever been in Catalunya for Sant Jordi??
Did you know about this story??
I read you in the comments :)
I’m so happy that I found time to share this special day with all of you, I hope you enjoy.
