What the hell is up with Spain? Light bulls' horns on fire and enjoy watching them run around going nuts? To honor some "Saint"?
Well, one bull has done his level best to even up the score:
A flaming-horned bull trampled and fatally gored a man early Saturday during a festival in eastern Spain, an official said.
Large balls of flaming wax are traditionally affixed to the beasts' heads before they are let loose to rampage through squares and narrow streets in such festivals.
the bull charged the man, gored him and then stamped on his head, causing him "irreversible injuries."
Many towns in east and northeastern Spain celebrate feasts with "toros embolados," or "flaming bulls," which feature the animals racing around and shaking their heads as a reaction to flames or fireworks attached to or close to their horns. At these regional festivals, flaming-horned bulls are taunted and teased by rowdy crowds in bullrings, town squares or down streets.
C'mon bulls, you got a lot of work left to do!
1 comment:
Hmmm, I wonder how far back this tradition goes? Hannibal set fire to the horns of a large number of oxen and stampeded them at the Romans at the Battle of Ager Falernus as a distracting tactic. I wonder if the idea originated with him and somehow traveled to Spain, or if this was already going on in Spain and Hannibal picked it up from them? (He spent a long time fighting in Spain before the Second Punic War really got rolling.) Or, maybe the idea was independently discovered by both Hannibal and the Spanish. After all, picking on cattle is pretty much a universal pastime: What rural teenager hasn't gone cow tipping today?
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