Spanish village of Lantz celebrates good v evil festival

The inhabitants of a northern Spanish mountain village have taken part in an age-old festival that re-enacts a legendary confrontation between good and evil.

Lantz Festival of good versus evil in Spain. Image by dantzan / CC BY-SA 2.0

Sunday’s festivities in Lantz celebrate a long-standing tradition in which the opposing forces challenge each other in a symbolic battle during which the colourfully-garbed villagers’ thirst for justice builds up into fiery public rage.

Villagers from Lantz, on the western skirts of the Pyrenees mountains where highwaymen once threatened rural harmony and cross-border trade with neighbouring France, are reputed to have chased down Miel Otxin, one of most fearsome bandits of them all.

During the annual feast, villagers dress in colourful and jingle-belled outfits and act out the hunt, capture and death sentence by burning meted out to the evil “bandido” raider.

(Press Association)