MCCLV Anniversary of the Battle of Victory

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Spain – On the first Friday of May, each year, the city of Jaca celebrates an ancestral feast, commemorating the battle of the Llanos de la Victoria, which took place around 760 and which confronted Moors and Christians.

Like every festivity that remembers the past, it has its part of legend and its part of reality.

The story tells that more than 90,000 Moors arrived at the gates of Jaca with the intention of conquering the city.

At the command of the same, was Count Aznar Galindez who managed to gather the people and encourage them to fight against the enemy.

As the invading army was much more numerous than the Jacetanos, they were about to surrender when the women of the place decided to go out on the street armed with kitchen utensils and join their husbands, parents and brothers, succeeding in defeating the enemy.

Legend has it that the Moors, confused by the reflection of the sun in pots and pans, thought that there were many more who were there and fled in terror, fearing to lose the battle and life.

Since then, there is usually a parade that recalls the entrance of Count Aznar to the town of Jaca after winning the battle.

In the tenth century a hermitage, the one of Victory, was erected in the place where everything happened.

Therefore, every first Friday of May, the Jacetanos go to the hermitage loaded with food and celebrate a lunch and a mass.

Then, they move to the center of the city where the Victory Parade begins.

The participants are dressed in period costumes run by a neighbour who plays Count Aznar.

During the route, there are salvos of trabuco that impregnate with smell of gunpowder the streets of Jaca, adorned with flags and flowers for the occasion.

The stamp, which commemorates the MCCLV anniversary of the battle, captures an image of one of the moments of the parade, next to a drawing of the Count of Aznar in the foreground.

Carmen Álvarez Casanova

Issue Date: 16.05.2017
Process: Offset
Size: 40.9 x 28.8 mm
Values: 0.60 €