do you have myth/folklore from your area?
Right now, I only can remember those. They are not from my area, but from the territories that were part of the Crown of Aragon (Catalonia, Aragon, Balearic Islands and Valencia).
The first one is 'TÃo de Nadal o Caga tió' which can be translated as Christmas Log or ‘Pooping’ Log. This one is from Catalonia and Aragon.
The traditions say that you feed the log (fruits, vegetables and water) and you put a banquet over him. This is done in December and for Christmas Evening, you made him 'pop' presents. Generally, kids have to sing a song and hit the log with some branches or things like that and then remove the banquet to find the presents. The song can differ from one place to another.I did it as a kid in the school, and we made him 'poop' before going on Christmas, and in my house the log 'poop' as frequently as my they can. Usually the presents have been something small and silly.
This is the song I used to sing.
The second one is dragons. I don't know why, but Catalonia and a Valencia are full of dragons.
We have a thing called 'Correfocs' which can be translated as fire-runs, where people dress up as devils and dance in the street doing fireworks spectacles. In some cases, a dragon can be included if the city has a legend with one.
This is an example of a concrete event. You can see the devils and the dragon dancing.
We also have a special day called the 'Diada de Sant Jordi' which translated as Saint George's Day. There's a legend associated with it which implies a dragon, it's called 'La llegenda de Sant Jordi' translated as 'Sant George's Legend'. I'm not going to tell the story in here because it's long. If people ask or is curios I can do a post about it with the traditions which are associated with Saint George's Day.
A funny fact is that a few years ago (2013 I think), 'LaCaixa' a very important Bank in Spain did a social campaign where famous people told the kids a 'book'. Jorge Lorenzo told the Sant George's Legend obviously with some twist to reference to MotoGP. Jordi is a common name in Catalan. The Spanish name is Jorge.
'Rei Carnestoltes' there isn't any translation. Basically, for Carnival (Carnestoltes in Catalan) we have a human straw doll (Rei Carnestoltes) that decide the activities we are going to do for carnival. In the school, generally, the older kids do a list of things to do on the carnival, and a week before the carnival we present 'Rei Carnestoltes' to the school, and we told his desires for the week until Carnival’. The things are small like on Monday we have to come to the school in pyjamas or Tuesday girls will wear a tie or neck tie and boys a dress or a skirt. You have to do it, otherwise, the kids will put paint on your face as proof of your disobedience, like a sun or a star. Generally, the last command is for Friday morning because in the afternoon we dress up, and we go around the city with the doll.
We also call him 'el rei dells poca-that's translated as the king little-loose.
We have 'La Vella Quaresma' which translate as 'The old Lent'. She's an old lady with seven feet, which she loses each week until we arrive at the Lent.
The tradition says that both 'Carnestoltes' and 'La Vella Quaresma' both are burnt on the Ash Wednesday, and then we eat sardine. I only did 'La Vella Quaresma' in school.
It's not really a myth or folklore, but we have the figure of 'La Castanyera' no translation. She's an old lady who sells roasted chestnuts on the street.
She is linked to the festivity 'La Castanyada' (no translation) which is celebrated on the 31th of October. In the school, all the kids sit on the school playground to eat roasted chestnuts and panellets, which are traditional desserts. We did the closest Friday possible.
Sorry for the long post, I swear that I tried to make it short, but I couldn’t.
I hope this is what you wanted.
