useless-catalanfacts:The Drummer of El Bruc (El Timbaler del Bruc)This is one of most well-known and
useless-catalanfacts:The Drummer of El Bruc (El Timbaler del Bruc)This is one of most well-known and loved legends from Catalonia.The legend is based on a real drummer, Isidre Lluçà i Casanoves (1791-1809), and the events that happened in 1808 during Napoleon’s invasion of Catalonia.Here’s the story: Around 1808, a terrible war was being fought in Catalonia as Napoleon’s army advanced unstoppably. The powerful army was about to attack El Bruc, a little village near the Montserrat Mountain Range, and its inhabitants were desperate.The inhabitants armed themselves as they could, with spears, stones, and sticks, and a young boy who always walked around the town carrying his drum asked how he could help. The other men told him to stay home, since older men knew all the corners and hideaways in the mountains, so they could attack the French by surprise, as this was the only possility they had to resist. The boy asked again how he could help, but got the same answer.Upset, he went home and started playing the drum, hoping it would calm him, but it just made him agrier. He felt so powerless and angry, that he grabbed his drum and went to the Montserrat mountains. When he got there, from the top of a mountain, he saw the impressing French troops and screamed “Oh my!”, and the mountains echoed his voiced. Then he played his drum, and the mountains echoed its sound once more.Then the boy understood he had to play louder and louder so the French would believe a powerful army was coming to fight them. His plan worked: the French heard the echoes and thought they heard the footsteps and drums of thousands of men, and, scared, they retired.The whole village recognised the boy’s actions and made a statue to remember this little hero. And some say that, even nowadays, if you go to Montserrat, you can still hear the distant echo of his drum.[Translated and adapted from Contes a la voreta del bloc]The Drummer of El Bruc has become a symbol of Catalonia and a symbol of resistance. -- source link
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