Narcís Puget, Art school excursión at the Old Bridge / Excursión escolar de arte al Pont Vell, Santa Eulalia, c. 1902 © Colección Domingo Guasch.

 

 p. 39 in Eivissa-Ibiza: Island Out of Time / La isla de antaño (Barbary Press, 2005) 

Image and text (re)published in Pacha Magazine no. 28, Oct. 2009, p. 68

A score of pupils pose for the young Narcís Puget, a recent graduate of Barcelona’s prestigious art academy, La Lotja. On the parapet is a local farmer, perhaps on his way home after leaving grain in a nearby watermill – one upstream is currently undergoing restoration. Santa Eulalia’s ancient bridge crosses the only river in the Balearics, and is a place charged with legend. Documented for the first time in 1720, its alternative names include the ‘Roman Bridge’ and the ‘Puente del Diablo’. The latter derives from a legend that the mayor who built it was having so many problems that he made the following pact with the devil: if the latter completed the work quickly, he could keep the first soul that crossed to the other side. The following morning the mayor turned up at the newly-finished bridge with a mysterious sack. Inside was a cat which, when released, streaked across – ensuring the outwitting of Old Nick. Another legend is commemorated in the children’s book Tal and the Magic Barruget (1965), and alleges that a flower blooms briefly at midnight on Midsummer Eve under the centre left-hand arch (looking towards Siesta, as here). If it is dropped into a black bottle, its owner will next morning have a hard-working barruget or fameliar – an Ibizan imp – to do his or her bidding. The barruget has to be fed with bread and cheese, however, and has a voracious appetite. The Santa Eulalia River stopped flowing around 1970 when the water table fell dramatically following a surge in island tourism. A couple of years ago, however, after a particularly rainy winter, it flowed almost the entire year through, and there is still a shady walk down to the sea where visitors can enjoy the ducks, newly-hatched chicks – and an odd stray cat. The modern road bridge, incidentally, was built in 1918.