La Tria de Mulats, the traditional annual fair of horses. Photos by Jordi Borràs for La Mira.
On Saint Edward’s Day, the 13th of October, the mare farmers of Molló and the Camprodon valley go to get their herds. For Saint John’s Day [24th of June], they took the herds to graze in the grass fields of Rojà, a mountain in the Canigó massif, at the other side of the border that divides Catalonia since the Treaty of the Pyrenees.
On the days before Saint Edward’s, the livestock farmers take their herds of mares and young horses to the mountaintop of Costabona, near Espinavell. On Saint Edward’s, they bring down the herds to the village, where they display the horses, and the farmers deal which animals they want to sell or buy.
This is an important day, a day to do fair, contest and, most of all, to meet with the rest of mare farmers and cow farmers who come from all the Ripollès and Vallespir areas. The Tria de Mulats is festivity, passion and compromise for the land/Earth. Borderless. A very alive tradition that reminds us of who we are, where we come from and what country do we want to be when we grow up.
