Summer arrives and the high season to enjoy the sun and the beaches of La Herradura and Almuñécar, the oldest city in the Spanish Mediterranean, and to kick off summer is celebrated on the night of June 23 to 24, which also falls this year on Friday, so many people from all corners of the province of Granada and Malaga will come to enjoy the bonfires and the splendor of this magical night on the beaches of Almuñécar and its neighbor La Herradura.

This festival with deep roots in Almuñécar also serves to welcome summer, to get rid of bad luck and other ancestral magical rituals, which range from forgetting sorrows to jumping over bonfires to make wishes…

The Origin of the Magical Night of San Juan

It is an ancient pagan celebration to welcome summer, which is the season of good weather and harvest harvests, but with Christianization it was given the name of the saint whose ephemeris is on June 24, beginning on festivities when night falls on June 23. Although the exact origin of the pagan festival is somewhat diffuse and is lost in time.

The Christian tradition assumed this ancient festival with thousands of years of antiquity that dates from between the years eight thousand and five thousand before Christ, celebrated by different peoples so disparate and dispersed, from the Celts to the Greeks, passing through the Berbers and Aztecs on the occasion the shortest night of the year, since from this date the hours of sunlight are getting shorter.

Most of the ancient and pagan festivals and rituals consisted of making large bonfires in squares, crossroads or any place that was an act for it and that could bring together as many people as possible. In these bonfires, past things were burned, whether real or figurative, but fire has also always carried with it an aura of mystery that in this case was magnified and used to cast spells, spells or burn aromatic and medicinal herbs to give it a special character. more mystical if possible. And in this way attract good harvests during the rest of the year, especially in summer.

Later, with the expansion of Christianity, the rituals were adapted and then it was attributed to Saint John the Baptist who celebrates his anniversary on June 24 according to the Christian calendar, and the origin of the bonfires that his father lit were attributed. saint, Zacarías, so that his relatives, neighbors and friends would know that the child had been born.

Rituals that are still maintained:

In our days, some of those traditions continue to be maintained symbolically, such as:

• Jump over the bonfires to make a wish.
• Bathe in the sea to get rid of bad luck.
• Or bathe on the beach with flowers to attract good luck.
• Light candles and write the name of a person you want to fall in love with you.
• Another ritual of the magical night of San Juan, to attract health, money and love, consists of throwing a fruit, a coin or a flower with your back to the sea.
• Other potions to purify the soul with aromatic plants are also typical of this night.
• Get soaked in the night dew, to obtain protection during the coming year.
• Make a list of bad memories and throw it into a bonfire, to heal the mind.
• Another of the rites of this festivity consists of washing your face with sea water just at twelve o’clock at night.
• Throw old belongings into the fire to free yourself from the past.
• Going into the sea looking at the moon, for good luck in the coming year.

Come and enjoy the Magic Night of San Juan in Almuñécar and La Herradura

This Friday in Almuñécar and La Herradura come and enjoy the Magical Night of San Juan, starting at ten o’clock on Friday the 23rd, when the great party will begin with all its deeply rooted traditions. Don’t wait for them to tell you, come and experience the shortest night of the year together with your friends and family in the oldest city bathed by the Mediterranean in Spain.