24/06/2026
A typically Catalan tradition, the Feux de la Saint-Jean festival is held every year on the night of June 23. The festivities include sardanas, grills, a blessing and distribution of traditional Catalan bouquets, the setting ablaze of the Canigó flame and a firework display (weather permitting).
Translated from the original Catalan:
"The legend of the Saint John bouquet"
A young girl picks at dawn la Bonaventure, a bouquet of plants, on the occasion of Saint John.
She braids the flowers and hangs them at her door.
The charmer, who has been courting her for several days, is invited to her home but refuses to enter her house.
Surprised and insistent, the young girl asks him his name.
He is forced to reveal his identity: he is the devil.
He tried to steal her soul, thwarted by a simple gathering of wildflowers.
The tradition:
The bouquet is made of magical plants, picked at dawn
It is hung on the front door, allowing it to uncover and drive away evil spirits.
A pure hand must braid or cross the plants: it's the young girl, the pure heart...
The composition:
In the Aspres, the bouquet today enjoys a more or less standardized composition, directly inherited from the shape of Aspres.
It consists of 4 flowering plants
- Millepertuis doré - flor de Sant Joan, trescamp, perigó groc,
- IImmortelle - sempreviva, perpetuïna -
- Orpin - mort-i-viu, maimori-
- Chatons de châtaigner (castanyer), replaced by feuilles de noyer (noguer) in some mountain areas.
- Other substitutions may occur elsewhere, but the intent is the same.
This composition of yellow flowers is clearly pagan
The bouquet is an ode to the sun.
On the day of Saint John, braid them and hang them at the front door, in place of the dried bouquet of the past year.
This old bouquet must be burned in the ash oof the celebratory fire: it joins the sun and the skies and prevents lightning.
The composition of the bouquet can vary, by specific village tradition.
In Villefranche-De-Conflent, the bouquets are made by a team of volunteers and distributed around the community.
The old ones are brought to be burnt with great solemnity at the Village grillade, which welcomes the flame of Canigo, as it travels to the mountain top.
The immolation of the dried bouquet of the past year promises the prosperity of the heavens (a request made on the day of the summer solstice)
-The bouquet of the year in progress, hanging on the door, will drive away the witches and the evil eye.
