Culture and Tradition
With exception of Eivissa all villages of the island have names of saints, as well Santa Eulalia del Río. But how did the small town came to its name? Everything began at the end of the 3rd century, when a young girl, to whom exceptional faculties were attributed, lived in the Catalan town of Sarrià. According to the legend, Eulalia not only helped the needed ones, she had also the gift to finish with a period of drought and to fill with her tears all wells of the province, since the accumulation of tears became such a large river, as it had not been seen in the province for many years.
After the Catalan-Aragonese troops, commanded by Guillem de Montgrí, repulsed the Moors from Ibiza in 1235, the Christian conquerors looked for names for the few existing villages. First the island was divided into so-called quarters, but thus it could not remain. Some years later the new rulers of the island remembered their Catalan roots and decided to give the villages names with religious background. When they became conscious that the only river of the island (and all Balearic Islands) flowed in a small town in the west of the island, they remember Eulalia from Serrià, who overcame the drought thanks to her many tears. Thus it was as Santa Eulalia del Río obtained his name.
Although each municipality of Santa Eulària celebrates its own patronage celebration, however the greatest of all village celebrations is the May celebration, which takes place annually the first Sunday of the month. Festively decorated cars, which are pulled by horses and cross the streets of the small town, have been for many decades the unmistakable stamp of the May celebrations. During a month concerts, parades and cultural events of all type follow one another. At the end the debilitated villagers by so many celebrations are just able to whisper „venim de maig “.
Also the May celebration owes its origin by a legend, and it is following:
On a first Sunday in May many, many years ago the morning mass in a small chapel on the hill S’ Eglésia Vella had just finished. The crowd of faithful, which had been congregated inside and around the chapel made their way home, when an enormous noise and rumbling disturbed the Sunday peace. When the roar had past, the faithful became aware that the chapel, in which they stood only few moments ago, had tumbled down and its remnants had disappeared in the sea. The circumstance that no harm was caused by the accident let the people believe in a miracle and from this moment they commemorate every first Sunday of May with a great celebration the fact that the chapel collapsed without serious consequences.