The Giants in the feasts of Barcelona today

The new giants and the cavallets-cotoners (little horses of cloth worn by men dressed who look like centaurs), dwarfs, the Vibria (the female dragon, in the photo), the Aliga (the eagle), the Dragon, the Tarasca, the Dolphin, the Ox, the Mulassa and the Lion all participate in the processions of the Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady of Mercè (Mercy). On the final evening of the Feast of the Mercè (25 September), all of these fascinating creatures come out of the door of the Infern (Hell) to participate in an interesting and dangerous pyrotechnics parade (correfoc), between two immense wings of the crowd placed along the via Laietana. In this scenario, hell, the legendary monsters old and new, march one behind the other, spitting fire from their mouths (something similar happens during the pirotechnical dance of the camel in a region in southern Italy). To deal with them, there are no longer any fearless saints, but rather thousands of spectators, adequately equipped to withstand the heat of sparks that redesign without end, the contours of a legacy which goes back several centuries, in the space of a night of the third millenium.