The day of Saint Ursula also known as The Feast of the Virgins
On the evening of 20th October every year a young mans fancy turns to love in Soller. It is the day for declarations of love and roses. A guitar and some doughnuts wouldn’t go amiss … Let me explain
Tradition says that St Ursula’s day is when a boy can declare his love for his sweetheart in time honoured fashion… He takes his guitar and a single rose and plays a love song outside her door. If she thinks he might be coming she will be sitting in an upstairs window and peep coyly down as the music starts. Her family, realising that this is a serious declaration of love and marriage invite him in. They entertain him with bunuelas – small deep fried doughnuts with a hole in the middle – and sweet wine.
Saint Ursula’s story is that on her religious conversion she promised God that she would protect her virginity. She had a love interest – a Breton price called Ereo but she decided on a higher calling and left him to go on a pilgrimage to consecrate her religious vows. Along the way she is reputed to have picked up 11,000 other virgins to join her on the way to see the Pope in Rome . He blessed them and they made their way home only to meet their end in Germany . A happy story…
Ursula was made a Saint and every year is remembered in this way. So is on the evening of the 20thOctober you see a young man striding purposefully in the streets of Soller with a guitar and a rose you will now what he is doing.
