'Les Falles' in Isil 2023

'Les Falles' is a festival that is celebrated in Isil ( Alt Àneu ) during the night of San Juan.

It was declared a Heritage Festival of National Interest in June 2010, and in December 2015, together with 63 Pyrenean towns in Catalonia, Aragon, France and Andorra, the Isil Fallas were declared Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

It is a ceremony of ancestral origin that has been celebrated uninterruptedly coinciding with the summer solstice. It is a fire worship festival in which burning logs are lowered down the mountain to the center of town. For the people of Isil, the night of June 23 is undoubtedly the most important of the year and attracts thousands of visitors to the town who come to experience the spectacularity and magic of 'Les Falles'.

The origin of the Falles is unknown. The inhabitants of Isil do not know how to specify a date or why, they solve it by explaining that it has been done all their lives. And certainly not even the experts know how to mark a specific beginning.

The custom of lighting a fire for San Juan survives in Isil as in the Catalan Countries. The celebration of the summer solstice has had a ritual complexity since prehistoric times that we do not know today. The theories are many and diverse.

Folklorists, ethnologists and anthropologists have studied one of the most convincing explanations in which the festival of fire is related to the pagan theory of the "fair" and the "nefarious". With the periods of the year that have an exceptional and sacred character where fire, herbs or water acquired special importance. One of these periods is the night of San Juan because it usually coincides with the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.

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