The Flame of San Lorenz

Also this year the San Lorenzo bonfires will be held again – in the local dialect, “li flama de San Lorenz”.
It is one of the historic traditions of the small village of Oga, to which the local population is particularly attached.
The typical nighttime bonfires (and in particular the large bonfire set on the natural balcony of Tadé at an altitude of 1900 meters) are lit in various parts of the village and on the slopes of Monte San Colombano.

• 8.30 p.m. gathering in the areas adjacent to the bonfires
• 9.00 p.m. lighting of the bonfires
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THE TRADITION:

Since time immemorial, the inhabitants of the village have devoted themselves to collecting large piles of wood, which are then burned all at once, creating an overall grand and fascinating effect. In local tradition, this seems intended to evoke the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, patron saint of the village, who was burnt alive on a gridiron. Most likely, however, the tradition of the majestic flama of Tadé, jealously preserved by the youth of Oga, recalls the pagan rite that in ancient times marked the end of the harvest, a rite of regeneration of nature after a vegetative cycle.
As for the smaller bonfires lit in the village, they are perhaps an echo of the burning of the last sheaf, which in the past was burned at the end of the harvest so that the ashes thus obtained could be scattered to increase the fertility of the fields.
As every year, the teenagers who until the previous year were involved in preparing the bonfires near the village, having come of age, also gain a degree of autonomy of their own: for this reason they detach themselves from the adults who followed them in previous years and – on their own – undertake to prepare and light the bonfires located at higher altitude.
This distancing, this taking on of responsibility, is also part of the Oga tradition: it represents the approach to adulthood.
They – the teenagers – having reached the higher ground, will be replaced in preparing the bonfires near the village by other children and young people from the village, carrying forward a beautiful, evocative tradition unconsciously linked to ancient and pagan rites.