Although in these lines Father Ginard recalls some mournful events, the flora of San Salvador is a declaration of love to the landscape of Arta, a town of adoption of the writer where he lived most of his life.
In front of the prehistoric caves at Sant Salvador there is a group of cypress trees. We cannot ignore that small plantation which keeps permanent watch over the cross installed to commemorate the inhabitants of Artà who died in the Spanish Civil War. In their funereal robes, these cypress tress, depending on the strength of the wind, perform the dance of death in honour of the fourteen dead. They dance rigidly, ceremoniously, without an inch of their dress falling out of place.
[...]
These cypresses are a symbolic cemetery, a truly sacred place. Before them are prehistoric caves surrounded by caper bushes 16th-century walls serve as a backdrop to this place and surround a sanctuary dedicated to the Mother of God. This is where the town of Artà was born. Time has woven into the walls a heroic decoration of cacti, wild olives, buckthorns, fennel and burdock, false yellowheads, nightshade, carob trees, hackberries and palms.
"La flora de Sant Salvador" a Croquis artanencs, Bellpuig, 1960
Translated by Richard Mansell. Performed by Miquel Pastor.
(Sant Joan, 1899 – Artà, 1976). A writer and folklorist, Ginard studied at the seminary in Majorca and joined the Franciscan order. He was at the convent of Saint Francis in Artà from 1913 until his death. In 1929 he published the collection Croquis artanencs (Sketches from Artà), a balance of popular and learned prose, where he brought together his work in the Artà publication “Llevant” from 1926 onwards. Many of his writings focus on the landscape around Artà that fascinated him so much. De com era infant (On how I was a child, 1932) brings together his memories of early childhood, very different to Llorenç Riber’s idealised memories, where he presents life in a small Majorcan town in the first half of the 20th century, in a realist narrative which does not hold back on any of the shortages and austerity they went through. He entered the Jocs Florals literary competition and achieved some success. Over many years he dedicated himself to virtually exhaustive research into Majorca’s popular poetry. He explained the origin of his interest in this type of poetry, as well as his methodology, in El cançoner popular de Mallorca (Majorca’s traditional songbook, 1960). Later, with the support of the Fundació March, he published four volumes that made up this opus magna between 1966 and 1975, with a prologue by Francesc de B. Moll.
Cypress trees, originating from the east of Majorca, have a funereal aftertaste here. According to the author, they refer to fourteen deaths on the Francoist side, a figure which curiously coincides with the fourteen Republicans from Artà who were murdered or who vanished, according to the writer Llorenç Capellà in the Diccionari vermell (Red dictionary).
The Croquis artanencs first appeared in the journal Llevant between 1926 and 1929. They were taken up again by the journal Bellpuig in 1960. They are a display of "noucentista" prose in which articles on folklore live side-by-side with poetic prose and descriptions of the landscape. The second edition was welcomed by Josep Sureda i Blanes, with a curious comparison between Ginard and Paul Morand, who wrote a book on Majorca in the 1960s. In Artà there was a tradition of people interested in botany, especially the apothecary Pujamunt. Llorenç Garcies Font, who published articles in the flora of Artà in the first half of the 20th century. It seems natural that a person such as Ginard, as enamoured with the countryside as he was, would also know about plants, is this is evident in the series of four articles he wrote about the plants of Sant Salvador.
