Soller fair this weekend – Pirates, legends & forgotten shores

Maps of the late nineteenth century would have shown very little coastal development in Mallorca. The only development of significance was Palma. The ports of Alcudia and Soller had population centres but only small. Fishing villages were otherwise tiny. Coastal land, much though it still formed parts of nobles’ grand possessions, was looked upon as being all but worthless. That it didn’t favour cultivation was a reason for never having exploited it. And there was historically one other major reason - the fear of piracy. In the second half of nineteenth century, a new reason for wanting to keep the coast quiet had become established; that was smuggling.

There were vested interests who preferred that there wasn’t development. One of Mallorca’s most notorious smugglers was Joan March, who was to eventually use his fortune and power in founding Banca March in 1926. Some years before this, March had made Cala Ratjada his summer retreat. A sort of palace was built there for him. Work on Sa Torre Cega started in 1916. Was it purely coincidence that March had chosen a coastal place about as far away from the capital as it was possible to get? Cala Ratjada wasn’t to become a proper port until the 1930s. It was nice and quiet.

There were efforts to curb the smuggling, assuming that agents weren’t paid off, one of the best known - if only because it led to the naming of a coastal village - having been in the municipality where March had been born, Santa Margalida. Jeroni Fuster was of humble stock. It was said that he couldn’t afford to live in Santa Margalida itself. In the nineteenth century, Santa Margalida came to be - so it has been reckoned - the wealthiest municipality away from Palma. This was due to its agriculture, rather than the March family. A solution for Jeroni was found - a humble shack on the coast. He was employed as a coast watchman, looking out for smugglers. His nickname was Picafort.

The main village of Santa Margalida was representative of other municipalities with a coast. It was well inland, where the land was fertile and there was that much less risk from pirates. Or so the thinking went. Fortification in the villages was limited. Alcudia and Capdepera were examples, not that either were immune from pirate raids.

In Alcudia, the image of the Mare de Déu de la Victoria, Mother of God of the Victory, is attributed with having repelled a 1551 incursion by some 500 or so pirates. The early July fiestas of La Victoria in Alcudia commemorate this, even if the story is almost certainly wrong. But there was a raid in that year, which demonstrated that the village of Alcudia, much closer to the coast than other villages, was as vulnerable as everywhere else.

Then there was Soller, the location for the raid of May 11, 1561, that is reenacted in such spectacular fashion each year. The village was and is closer to the coast compared with various other municipalities - around three kilometres - and there isn’t much of an elevation above sea level. Soller was high risk when it came to pirate assaults.

While the events of the re-enactment are true up to a point, they also contain some myth and interpretation, rather like La Victoria therefore, for which the historically stronger case for the celebration lies with victory over the brotherhoods during the Germanies War of 1521 to 1523. There is a preference to overlook this, given the fact that the brotherhoods are generally viewed nowadays as having been the good guys. The role of Soller’s ‘Valents Dones’ (the Brave Women) was subject to revision over a period of 300 years. What role they truly had cannot be confirmed, not that anyone’s that bothered as they are central to the victorious narrative of the reenactment.

A good amount of legend attaches itself to the pirate attacks. Which is fair enough, as it has enabled ripping yarns to become embedded in the island culture. But in the case of Soller, any historical inaccuracies aside, there is one really quite odd historical fact. This is confirmed by the detailed records that were kept of incidents involving pirates. These weren’t all landings by any means, but in the eighty years before Soller there were 1,723 recorded incidents. More than twenty a year, there were peaks. In 1560 there had been eighteen by September. Then they stopped. Until Soller. Various explanations come to mind, sea conditions being one of them. But such a gap was very unusual and has therefore led to a theory that something bigger than a regular one-off pirate raid had in fact been planned.

Whatever the validity of this theory, Soller, along with Pollensa, symbolises more than elsewhere in Mallorca the centuries of pirate raids. The Moors and Christians simulation is rooted in Mallorca’s culture, just as the fear of raids was engrained in the island psyche and was to last and contribute to the apparent worthlessness of the coast. Some might say that this was before a whole new breed of pirates laid waste to the coast. But that’s an entirely different story.

PROGRAMME FOR SOLLER'S FAIR

Friday, May 9

• Soller, Soller Fair - 6pm: Pipers procession. From Plaça Mercat. 8pm: Batucada procession. C. Sa Lluna, Plaça Constitució. 8.15pm: ‘Sus’, activities to announce the fair. Plaça Constitució and surrounds. 11.30pm: Animacústica Quartet, Valnou, Dirty Jobs. By the town hall.

Saturday, May 10

• Soller, Soller Fair - 11am: Bigheads, giants, pipers and drummers, the brave women. From Can Prunera. 5pm: Solemn procession of the Mare de Déu de la Victoria. C. Palou to Plaça Constitució; folk dancers and pipers. 10pm: Dou Marblau, Tomeu Penya, Na Pipona, Joan Atienza. By the town hall.

Sunday, May 11

• Soller, Soller Fair - 9am-2pm: Livestock, cars, classic motorbikes, C. Cetre, Gran Via. 10.30am: Mass. 12 noon: Soller Band of Music. Plaça Constitució. 12.30pm: Equestrian show, C. Cetre. 6pm: Folk dance; Aires Sollerics, Estol de Tramuntana, Plaça Constitució. 9.30pm: Pipers and Estol de Tramuntana, Plaça Mercat. 10pm: Pitxorines (female folk group), By the town hall.

Monday, May 12

• Soller, Es Firó (Moors and Christians) - 10am: At the monument to the heroes followed by mass at Can Tamany with the ‘brave women’, pipers and dignitaries. 3pm: Bells ring to warn that the enemy has been seen. 3.30pm: Captain Angelats places his trust in the Mare de Déu de la Victòria and commands the people into battle, Plaça Constitució. 5pm: First Saracen attack. Landing at Can Generós beach is repelled. 6.15pm: The second landing, at Repic beach, is successful. 7.15pm: Battle at Pont d’en Barona. 8.30pm: Saracens enter the village and sack houses and the church. 8.50pm: Ulutx Ali arrives to claim victory. 9pm: The Sollerics regroup in C. Sa Lluna and finally overcome the enemy. 9.30pm: Captain Angelats proclaims the victory.