Alfaz retains its ties with tradition

ALFAZ DEL PI recently celebrated one of its oldest traditions, the couplets honouring Our Lady of Sorrows.

Reciting and singing the ‘Copletes’ are the oldest of Alfaz’s celebrations and are thought to predate the fiestas of many neighbouring towns.

Roughly coinciding with the religious feast day, the fiesta heralds the transition from summer to autumn that was so important when Alfaz was still an agricultural community.

Now regarded as difficult to perform, singers do not need good voices and, as always, the ‘Copletes’ were recited and sung outside the church under the pine that gives the town its name.

The custom lapsed after the Civil War but was revived in 1986 thanks to older residents who remembered them from their youth.

As custom required, once the ‘Copletes’ were finished, fiestas’ queens Andrea Alonso and Sara Ditsch, who will later preside the town’s November celebrations, began the dancing.

And as it has for generations, the evening concluded with sweet mistela wine and cakes.