Girona's monsters, creatures, and festival figures
Els capgrossos[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Friendly |
Els capgrossos (the "big-heads") are a Catalan tradition. People wear big false heads on their shoulders, giving the effect of a person with a giant head. The wearer usually sees through the mouth or neck opening. They dance at parades and town festivals, to entertain children.
Girona has ten capgrossos, like the seven dwarfs from Sleeping Beauty. You can usually see them on display at the entrance to the Museu d'Història (History Museum). They are a bit creepy, and probably come alive at night like the animatronics in Five Nights at Freddy’s.
They pay tribute to the various types of people who lived in Girona in medieval times:
L’Esquivamosques[edit]
L’Esquivamosques ("fly-dodger") is the leader of the capgrosses. He appears to have some kind of disease, because his face full of warts, and flies are attracted to him.[1] His most distinctive feature is a giant fly on his nose, referencing the Girona legend of Saint Narcís and the miraculous flies that defended Girona, as well as the Catalan saying “tenir la mosca al nas” (to be annoyed).[2] He sometimes carries a large wooden fly swatter.[3]
El Fraret[edit]
El Fraret ("Little Friar") is dressed in a friar’s robes. He is the smallest capgros. Unlike the other capgrossos, instead of seeing through the mouth, the wearer looks out through small holes above the eyes and in the nose.[4] It was the only figure to survive the floods around the time it was acquired.[1] (Unlike the other capgrosses, the figure was inside a wardrobe when the floods happened.)
El Mercader[edit]
The Mercader ("the Merchant") is a (possibly racist?) depiction of a medieval Jewish moneylender. He has a long nose — a typical trait in caricatures of Jews — and the broad smile of someone who has achieved high social status.[1] In his hand, he holds a purse of coins. He only has one tooth, because he lost his other teeth biting his coins to check the authenticity of the metal, another stereotype of greedy and usurious Jews.[1]
He takes his name from Carrer dels Mercaders, a small street located at the foot of the Jewish quarter, where moneylending allowed many Jewish families to accumulate small fortunes.[1]
L’Argentera[edit]
The Argentera ("the Silversmith's wife") a wealthy woman of great elegance, wearing a beautiful dress, adorned with fine decorations, precious stones, earrings, and a necklace.[1] She is named after Carrer Argentera, where jewellers and watchmakers once worked.[1]
El Merdisser[edit]
El Merdisser is a manure-seller or literally "shit-seller".[1] He represents the people who used to sell manure in Girona's markets.[1] The name Merdisser comes from the Catalan word merda (“shit”). In Catalan, the suffix -isser can imply someone who handles or works with something (like pastisser → pastry-maker). So merdisser literally means “the one who deals with shit” or “shit-handler.”
He is dressed impeccably, in corduroy trousers, waistcoat, and white shirt, which amazingly doesn't have any shit stains on it, even though he sells shit for a living. On his head he wears a barretina (Catalan hat).[1] Other famous Catalan characters who wear a barretina are the tio (Christmas log), Patufet, and the caganer. The tio shits out presents; a cow shat our Patufet; and the caganer takes a shit next to baby Jesus in the stable. So anyone who wears the barretina has something to do with poo, apparently.
La Marieta de les Cols[edit]
La Marieta de les Cols (“Marieta of the cabbages”) is a cabbage seller. In the past, Girona had a wide variety of markets, and the busiest spot was the food market at Plaça de les Cols (which today is called Rambla de la Llibertat).[1] She wears bright clothes and holds her basket of cabbages, which sometimes she throws at people.
El Ciutadà[edit]
El Ciutadà (the "Citizen") personifies Girona’s civic power, tied to Carrer dels Ciutadans.[2] He carries a staff of authority and wears clothing typical of medieval city officials. He is a mature man with a serious expression, holding a ceremonial staff as a symbol of authority. He wears a long crimson robe known as the gramalla, the traditional outfit of the city’s jurats, the highest municipal authorities of the time (a role roughly equivalent today to the mayor and deputy mayors).[1]
La Beneta de la Força[edit]
La Beneta de la Força is an elderly nun from the Benedictine order. The order’s thousand-year-old monastery, still active today, is located in the valley of Sant Daniel.[1]
She is named after Carrer de la Força. This is one of the main commercial streets of the old town, with ecclesiastical origins and direct connections to Girona Cathedral.[1] The name also evokes la Força, the great bell of the cathedral’s bell tower.[1]
She has a stern face and serious expression, and wears a simple dark-blue robe, the habit of her religious order.[1]
El Ballester[edit]
El Ballester ("the Crossbowman") is one of the watchmen who guarded Girona along the walls. He takes his name from Carrer Ballesteries, a street that follows the line of the Muralla.[1] He is portrayed as a strong and vigorous young man. His girlfriend is La Pericota.[1]
La Pericota[edit]
La Pericota is a cheerful young girl wearing a red kerchief. She is named after one of the springs in the valley of Sant Daniel — the Font d’en Pericot — itself named after a house built in the 18th century next to the spring, owned by the Pericot family.[1]
The valley’s lush springs have always been a favourite leisure spot for the people of Girona. On Sundays and summer evenings, gatherings and celebrations with sardana dancing took place there.[1]
This is why the Pericota has a joyful smile. She is dressed in a skirt falling below the knee, a patterned bodice, a white velvet vest, and a red headscarf, and she carries a jug of fresh spring water.[1]
Other capgrossos[edit]
- Avi Tata and La Nena are a grandfather and granddaughter who were made in 2002.[5]
Els gegants[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Benevolent |
Gegants (giants) are large, hollow, papier-mâché figures that are carried by dancers for parades and festivals. Every town and neighbourhood in Catalonia has its own giants. For example, Bisbal d'Empordà has a giant called Rigoberta that has one of her breasts out, and she squirts water out of her nipple. Children love it.
Girona has four gegants:
- Carlemany: 56 kg, 3.70 m tall[6]
- Anna Gironella: 41 kg, 3.55 m tall[6]
- Fèlix (named after the bell tower of Sant Feliu, popularly known as Sant Fèlix). The most distinctive feature of Fèlix is the Golden Fleece medallion he wears, symbolising royalty.[6]
- Àngels (named after the Sanctuary of Mare de Déu dels Àngels, a beloved viewpoint for locals). Àngels is recognised by her two long blonde braids. Historically, her hairstyle was changed each year depending on fashion trends.[6]
El Tarlá[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Lighthearted |
The Tarlà is one of Girona’s most iconic figures. It's a life-sized puppet dressed like a medieval jester, complete with bells on his hat. Every spring, around Sant Jordi, he appears hanging across Carrer de l’Argenteria, spinning joyfully on a horizontal bar.[7] His stiff arms are attached to a bar that can be rotated from one of the nearby balconies, making the Tarlà spin above the street.[7]
According to the Girona legend, the Tarlà dates back to a time when the plague struck Carrer Argenteria. The street was sealed off, and residents were quarantined, a bit like during COVID-19.[7] However, unlike during COVID-10, the citizens of Girona didn’t have Netflix to keep them entertained. So to lift their spirits during the long days of isolation, a lively acrobat known as the Tarlà performed flips and tricks in the middle of the street.[7] After the epidemic passed, locals created a puppet and hung it every year in his memory.[7]
La Bruixa[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Wicked |
La Bruixa ("the witch") is a person wearing stilts and dressed in a gown and mask who goes around trying to smack people on their heads with a broom. The mask is actually pretty scary. If you're walking home drunk late one night after going to Les Barrques, and you saw this witch, you'd probably shit your pants.
It's the same witch from the legend of the cathedral. (See Statues_in_Girona#La_Bruixa). Legend says a witch was throwing stones at people from the roof of Girona Cathedral, so God turned her into a stone statue (which you can see today). Apparently, every time Girona has a parade or a festival, the witch magically becomes alive again, to terrorise people with her broom and traumatize young children.
L’Àliga[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Good |
A giant golden eagle.
Girona is not the only city to have a giant eagle. The neighbourhood of Sant Julia in Barcelona has one too, for example.[8]
El Beatosaure[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Extremely evil |
The Beatosaure (Beatusaurus in Spanish) is a dragon with seven heads. It appeared for the first time in 2002 during El Pregó de Fires,[9] and now appears at least twice a year: on Sant Jordi's Day and during Les Fires. The dragon is actually Satan. Someone had seen a cool picture of the dragon in a book called the Beatus (a really old book in Girona Cathedral), and thought, "that'll look good in parades in Girona", so the Fal·lera Gironina made a life-size version of it. The book was a guide to the Book of Revelation (aka the Book of the Apocalypse), the last book of the Bible.
But there are actually three seven-headed dragons in the Book of Revelation. Which dragon the Beatosaurus is, we don't know.
Dragon 1[edit]
Then another sign appeared in heaven: a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven royal crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky, tossing them to the earth. (Book of Revelation 12:4)
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (Book of Revelation 12:9)
Dragon 2[edit]
The next chapter appears to describe a different, but very similar dragon:
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. This beast looked like a leopard, with feet like a bear's feet. It had a mouth like a lion's mouth. The dragon gave the beast all of its power and its throne and great authority. (Book of Revelation 13:1-2)
Dragon 3[edit]
Finally, in chapter 17, there appears to be a third dragon:
Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. (Book of Revelation 17:3)
Beatus[edit]
The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse, was written around 95 AD by a dude named John. In 776 AD, a cool guy called Beatus of Liébana, an abbot at a monastery in northern Spain, wrote a commentary on the Book of Revelation. Copies of this work are known as Beatus manuscripts. One of them, the Beatus of Girona, is kept in Girona Cathedral.
The top head is red and has ten horns. The other six heads are on the beast's neck and look like cats.
Dragolins[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Cute but probably dangerous |
Dragolins are small, child-sized versions of the Beatosaure. There are four of them, and they were created in 2017.[11] Each weighs 3.5 kg. Like the rest of Girona's festival figures, they are made using cartró pedra (a technique similar to paper mâché).[11]
=Petit Drac Major[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Dangerous |
La Cocollona[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Approach with caution |
The Cocollona is a crocodile with butterfly wings said to live in the river Onyar. Its name comes from the Catalan words cocodril (crocodile) and papallona (butterfly). It can only be seen just before sunrise on a full moon[12] by a child or by a person of pure heart. The joke is that no adult in Girona can see it because no adult in Girona has a pure heart.
The legend says there was a nun from a local convent who was locked away in the basement by the other nuns. She developed scales due to the damp, and turned into the crocodile-butterfly hybrid. She is usually drawn simply as a crocodile with butterfly wings, but actually, she's half-crocodile, half-butterfly, half-woman, so the correct representation is a woman with scales and butterfly wings.
Portrayals of the Cocollona:
- The Cocollona is the mascot of Bàsquet Girona and Uni Girona (Girona's main male and female basketball teams)
- There is a huge painting of the Cocollona on the wall of Carrer Bonastruc de Porta, 7. It was painted by Italian artist Erica il Cane during the Milestone Project of 2012.[13][14]
- Girona's annual horror film festival, Acocollona't, is named after the Cocollona.
- There is a capgros of the Cocollona.
There is a Cocollona, but is there a Cocollono? A Cocollono would be a male version of the Cocollona, some man who was unfortunate to get transformed into a half-crocodile, half-butterfly creature. As of yet there is no evidence of the existence of a Cocollono, but there are some who say that every night, the Cocollona can be heard wailing out of loneliness for a mate.
Gerió[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Wicked |
Gerió is a giant with three heads and six arms. He appears during parades and town festivals. The giant made his first appearance in Girona in 2001.[15]
His three heads represent three stories: how Hercules stole Gerió's oxen, how Gerió founded Girona, and how the Pyrenees mountains got their name.
The first head, “The Cowherd”, represents the time when Gerió was an ox herder on the island of Erytheia. Hercules had to complete twelve labours to atone for killing his own wife and children, so for the tenth labour, he had to sail to the island of Erytheia and steal the cattle from the three-headed Gerió. In most versions of the story, Hercules shoots Gerió with a poison-tipped arrow (either in his heart, or through all of his three heads at once), killing him. However, in the Girona version of the story, Gerió DOES NOT die. Instead, Hercules, a pathetic coward, simply waits until Gerió falls asleep, then steals the cattle and leaves.[16]
Gerió's second head, “The Architect”, represents the story of how Gerió founded Girona. Yes, it wasn't Romans who found Girona; it was a three-headed giant. It's said that Gerió was so angry with Hercules for stealing the cattle that he wanted to build a stronghold to stop it from ever happening again. He travelled across the lands and stopped when he came to Catalonia. He was so captivated by the landscape that he built his tower there, which became the first building of Girona. Later, he transformed his beautiful tower into an immense triangular fortress, which people called “the city of Geriona.” Some people claim that Girona's old name, Gerunda is from "Gerió" (the name of the giant) + "Unda" (the river that flowed through the city).[17]
Gerió's third head, “The Warrior”, is angry-looking. He holds a shield and a spear, and represents the person who killed Pyrene and how the Pyrenees mountains got their name. One day, where the Ter and Onyar rivers meet, Gerió saw a beautiful girl called Pirene. He declared his love to her, but she rejected him. That night, maddened, he decided to kill Pirene by setting her forest on fire. The mountains where she lived turned into a sea of flames.[16] Today, those mountains are called the Pyrenees.
In some versions, the stories are in a different order. Gerió goes to Catalonia and builds a castle that later becomes Girona. His kills Pyrene then moves back to his island of Erytheia. When Hercules finds Pyrene's dead body, he's so enraged that he travels to Erytheia and kills Gerió.
Mula Baba[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Friendly |
A mule (mula) is the offspring of a donkey and a horse.
Mula Petita[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Friendly |
The Mula Petita is made of cartró pedra and wood. It is a scale replica of the Mula Baba, except for the head, which can spit water and move its ears.[18] It first appeared in 2016, in the parade before the opening speech of the 2016 Fires festival.[18]
The Mula Petita accompanies the Mula Baba in the Fires parades in October and in the mule parade in spring.[18]
La Tolrana[edit]
| Threat level |
|---|
| Probably harmless |
Legend says a ghost called la Tolrana haunts the Barri Vell. The story tells of a Jewish woman who lived in Girona’s Jewish quarter in the 14th century. During attacks against the Jewish community in 1391, she was found decapitated in Torre Gironella, where many Jews had taken refuge.[19] Since then, according to legend, her ghost has haunted the Barri Vell, but not as an apparition, but as a sorrowful woman’s voice singing strange, mournful laments at night. If you walk through the old streets or along the Passeig Arqueològic at night, you may hear her voice.[19]
Other[edit]
- We like to think a dragon lives under the Cathedral but so far this legend hasn't caught on.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 Information board about the capgrosses, in Plaça del Vi on 1 Nov 2025
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://fal-leragironina.cat/cat/cercavila/capgrossos.html
- ↑ https://fal-leragironina.cat/cat/cercavila/capgrossos/esquivamosques.html
- ↑ https://fal-leragironina.cat/cat/cercavila/capgrossos/fraret.html
- ↑ https://fal-leragironina.cat/cat/cercavila/capgrossos/avi-tata.html
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 https://www.pedresdegirona.com/separata_gegants_1.htm
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 https://www.pedresdegirona.com/separata_tarla.htm
- ↑ https://www.bestiari.cat/figura/aliga-de-sant-julia-de-vilafranca/
- ↑ https://www.pedresdegirona.com/separata_beatusaure.htm
- ↑ "The beast was inspired by one of the miniatures in the Beatus of Girona Cathedral, which illustrates the biblical text of the Apocalypse: the seven-headed, ten-horned Dragon that appears on folio 176(v), a representation of evil." https://fal-leragironina.cat/es/pasacalle/bestiario/beatusaurus.html
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 https://www.bestiari.cat/figura/els-dragolins/
- ↑ https://www.pedresdegirona.com/separata_cocollona.htm
- ↑ https://streetartcities.com/markers/6149
- ↑ https://sobremuros.weebly.com/ante-el-muro/el-monstruo-del-arte
- ↑ https://fal-leragironina.cat/es/pasacalle/gigantes/gerio.html
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 https://www.pedresdegirona.com/separata_gerio_1.htm
- ↑ https://www.pedresdegirona.com/historia_roma_0.htm
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Sign next to the Mula Petita at the 2025 mule parade. 2025-05-04
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 https://www.pedresdegirona.com/separata_jueva.htm
