Dance of the Swords of Marin

A dance of four centuries in Marín

The town honours Saint Michael with a colourful and colourful traditional dance.

From heaven, the archangel St. Michael launched all his forces against the dragon and his soldiers, helped by his retinue of faithful angels, and in this way the dragon was defeated and cast down to Earth. Since then, the archangel is usually represented as a warrior angel with helmet, sword and armour. In Marin, men who venture out to sea pay tribute to the saint annually.

There are no dragons in the sea, or at least we are aware of that now, for ancient marine cartographies mapped monsters at the ends of the world. But the raging sea needs no beast to call down misfortune, and the coastal towns know it well. In 1639, the Brotherhood of Saint Michael, patron saint of the Sailors' Guild and of the town of Marin, was created so that sailors could pay tribute and veneration to him as protection against the dangers of the sea, as well as gratitude for the fruits they obtained from it.

And although the archives that preserved the documentation of this tradition have been lost, historians date the origin of the dance of the Swords, which is nothing more than the visible ritual in gratitude to the patron saint, back to the same dates in the 17th century.

The parade is made up of three groups, with more than a hundred people performing the dance. It takes the form of a procession, while the saint is carried, and stops at three points along the route to perform the dance, namely in front of the music box in the alameda, in the Plaza de España and finally in the Plaza del Reloj.

The brotherhood disappeared in the 19th century, and with it the dance and the ritual. In the middle of the last century, the Ateneo Santa Cecilia decided to recover this tradition and brought the dance back to Marín in 1959. Since then it has kept its annual date with the patron saint, which has now reached almost four centuries of history.

To see and visit

A visit to Marín allows you to see some of its beautiful beaches, including those of Mogor, Aguete and Loira. Another good option is to visit the Park of the Senses.