Grand tours: The villagers spoke in tongues of fire

Writers' adventures in literature: this week Lucia Graves recalls the dramatic Easter traditions played out in a Mallorcan village

Born in England in 1943, the daughter of the poet Robert Graves, Lucia Graves spent most of her childhood in the Mallorcan village of Deia. Living under Franco's rule, Graves grew up striving to bridge the cultural and linguistic gap between English, Catalan and Spanish life, which afforded her the unique perspective that has characterised her writing. Graves left Spain to study, but returned to raise her own family in Catalonia. This extract is from 'A Woman Unknown; voices from a Spanish life'.

On the eve of St Anthony, 16 January, bonfires were lit at night in various parts of the village – a Christian adoption of a pagan ritual to celebrate the New Year. But the most exciting bonfires were on Good Friday when they were lit in the possessions, and from the village all one could see were the bright orange flames licking the dark semicircle of mountains. The farmhouse situated furthest to the right, which had a view of the church door, would wait to catch sight of the silent candlelit procession leaving the church after Mass, and would then light its bonfire; the next farmhouse, on seeing the flames of the first bonfire, would light up, too, and so each farmhouse would light its pile of wood and brambles until the full semicircle was completed. I was fascinated that people could communicate through distant signs; that they could make fires speak to one another, sending messages of fraternity from one powerful house to the next and at the same time showing off their wealth through the size and brightness of the flames. But, above all, that they could communicate to the villagers, who were slowly walking down the hill towards the town hall and up again on the other side, that the farmhouses were the ancient guardians of the mountain and were there to protect them. Is this power to communicate another reason why we say "tongues of fire"?

Fire could also be destructive and frightening. One summer afternoon, when trees and bushes were parched, I was in the village with my friends when a fire began to spread in some terraces above the village. The smoke was dense, forming clouds that hung over the mountainside, spreading a strange heat and the smell of burnt leaves. People were gathering quickly, running to the scene with buckets which they filled with water in the fountain by the road. In minutes, a human chain was formed all the way up a path towards the fire, and I have a clear recollection of the buckets being passed from one person to the next, up the chain.

There were also tame fires in the mountains, useful fires: the fires of the charcoal-burners who spent weeks at a time in the oakwoods high above the village, sleeping alone under the stars, tending their pyres like priests of some mysterious oracle. I once went up the mountain with a young girl from the village to take provisions to her father who was up there burning wood. I remember that as we walked up the winding path the ground was covered with small dry oak leaves and we had to take care not to slip on them. Then we came to a flat clearing and saw the charcoal-burner sitting alone on a rock, looking tired and unshaven. In the middle of the open space was the round pile of wood with a thin streak of blue smoke rising from it, and in a shady corner I saw an old blanket and some tin plates, and an earthenware water-pitcher. The dark man took the pitcher and offered us a drink of the cool water which, he said, came from a nearby spring. I had heard about the dones d'aigo, the water-women who lived in the springs, and wondered whether he had seen them, flitting around the wood at night, but was too shy to ask.

At different levels of the mountainside, underground water, channelled through man-made tunnels, flowed out into the basins of stone fountains placed like shrines at the dark mouths, with fern and moss and ivy growing profusely around them. And beneath the smooth dark ripples lived the dones d'aigo, the water-women, fairies who came out only at night, like bats, to roam the woods. In ancient times they had lived in broad daylight, filling the woods with mysterious powers, giving speech to birds, trees, water and wind, carpeting their groves with wild flowers. But the arrival of the True Cross had condemned them to darkness; they had vanished, like the thick grey mist that sometimes sweeps through the trees in the early morning. The earth had swallowed the dones d'aigo, but it is said that they created marvellous palaces underground, with lakes and waterfalls, with spacious halls where they sat sadly in the shadows and wove watery garments for their flights into the upper world. Each one guarded a mountain spring, each was the living spirit of its water: the Fresh Spring, the Profuse Spring, the Spring of Lies (called this because if you drank from it you might start telling lies); their glassy currents ran down to the public washing places in the town, where women scrubbed their clothes on the grey stone slabs and dipped them into the running waters of the basin; or formed new fountains in the town, or were channelled into large reservoirs belonging to the mountain farmhouses and from there sent downhill to other farmlands and groves.

'A Woman Unknown; voices from a Spanish life', by Lucia Graves (Virago, RRP £8.99). Readers of 'The Independent on Sunday' can order a copy for the discounted price of £7.99 (including p&p in the UK) by calling 01832 737525 and quoting Unknown Woman/ Span Offer.

Follow in the footsteps

Artistic licence

Writers, artists and musicians have been attracted to the village of Deia since the early 20th century. The parish church at the end of Carrer es Puig, the town's main road, contains a small cemetery where Robert Graves, Lucia Graves's father, is buried.

From Deia you can scramble down through olive groves to the cove, Cala de Deia. On summer weekends, local artists continue the tradition of parties and skinny-dipping.

In nearby Valldemossa, visit the Cartoixa Reial (00 34 971 61 2106), a Carthusian monastery where Frederic Chopin stayed for a few romantic months with his lover George Sand.

Getting there

Easyjet (0870-6000 000; www.easyjet.com) offers return fares to Palma from £70. British Airways (0845-77 333 77; www.ba.com) offers return fares from £129.

The 16th-century manor house, La Residencia (00 34 971 63 90 11; www.hotel-laresidencia.com), offers doubles from €199 (£130) per night, based on two sharing. For further information, contact the Spanish National Tourist Board (020-7486 8077; www.tourspain.es).

Genevieve Roberts