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LANTZ, Spain (AP) — The inhabitants of a northern Spanish mountain village have taken part in an age-old Carnival festival that re-enacts a legendary confrontation between good and evil.
Sunday's festivities in Lantz celebrate a long-standing tradition in which the opposing forces challenge each other in a symbolic battle during which the colorfully-garbed villagers' thirst for justice builds up into fiery public rage.
Villagers from Lantz, which is located on the western skirts of the Pyrenees Mountains where highwaymen once threatened rural harmony and cross-border trade with neighboring France, are reputed to have chased down Miel Otxin, one of most fearsome bandits of them all.
During the annual feast, villagers dress in colorful and jingle-belled outfits and act out the hunt, capture and death sentence by burning meted out to the evil "bandido" raider.
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