From Heaven to Hell
hours
DIFFICULTY
Easy
DISTANCE
7’30 km
ACCUMULATED LEVEL
75 m
GEAR
Comfortable clothing and shoes.
From Heaven to Hell: from Sant Cristòfol to s´Era Esfondrada.
Many legends are the essence of a people, the lifeblood of a community. They have served to explain and give meaning to an episode, a person or a singular event, generally with a real basis. This is why many places in our geography are accompanied by fabulous tales that have been handed down from mouth to ear, generation after generation.
Sencelles, as an ancient land, has a large number of legends that make up an itinerary that forms part of its popular folklore.
Before moving on, you should remember this saying that is as beautiful as true: “the town that doesn’t keep its legends and stories alive is doomed to die in the cold”.
1
San Cristòfol´s foot
The parish church of Biniali, dedicated to Saint Christopher since ancient times, conserves a sculpture of the saint on the bell tower. Antoni M. Alcover, in his rondalles mallorquines (Mallorcan folklore tales), records a legend related to the saint entitled: “El pie de San Cristóbal” (Saint Christopher’s foot).
They say that this saint came from Llucmajor and slipped while walking on s’Heretat peak. At the top of this mountain you can still see a rock with a large opening and it is said that this is the slippery point. From s’Heretat, Saint Christopher slipped down to es Porrassar, behind the Can Mulet corral, almost inside the village of Algaire, where he left the mark of his foot on a rock. It is an indentation about six palms long that has the shape of a footprint. There are mothers who take their babies to try walking in the indentation because they say they learn faster.
And don’t think that San Cristóbal was frightened in es Porrassar, like the wheat of the thirteenth year. With another step he threw himself from the bell tower of Biniali, where he remained the patron saint.
In the middle of the 20th century, lightning struck the bell tower and a new one had to be made.
2
Sonarrosa: “a sickly place”
Right next to the estate of Son Santjoan de Sonarrossa is the llogaret of the same name, made up of a group of traditional houses of great beauty and tranquility, originating from the distribution of land in medieval times. Can Sion, Can Francesc, Can Pau Guillemet, among others, are located within the old stables of Sonarrossa.
It was in the 18th century when the highly distinguished Mallorcan Jeroni de Berard described this nucleus of houses with a mysterious paragraph: “Son Arrosa. A place of five houses. Ancient from before the conquest, as proven by the Capuchin Father Mariano. Sickly place”.
According to some opinions, this attribution could be due to the many conflicts that the lords of the knighthood had with the residents. For example, when the master threatened them that no one should dare take wheat, corn, beans or legumes without a license or his knowledge.
Others point to the destruction caused by the popular revolt that took place between 1450 and 1452, although the epithet of ‘sickly place’ is due to Sonarrossa pond’s proximity, where animals commonly drank. This accumulation of water was the cause of numerous diseases known as ‘fevers’, transmitted by insects of the area.
So, men and women, revolutionaries or insects, they made this place a ‘sickly place’, although today it is quite the opposite.
3
“S´era Esfondrada” (collapsed threshing circle)
At the end of ‘Camí Dret’, in the grounds of Can Pobre, is s’Era Esfondrada, a cavity or natural well some forty metres in diameter that is home to one of the most interesting legends.
This legend is not exclusive to Sencelles, another version of it exists in the district of Escorca, and the poet from Pollença Miquel Costa i Llobera, wrote a poem from this legend.
