When he asked why men risked life and limb to run with the bulls of Pamplona, Jaed Coffin '02 was told that a young man cannot resist the magic of beauty and danger.
Illustration by Richard Downs
It was in a movie about the samurai, or outlaw cowboys: the hero, conscious that this day he will die, grooms himself. He shaves. He combs his hair. He adjusts his collar around his neck. And he steps outside, meets his death, and dies in the rain. At least he's clean.
Last summer, I ran with the bulls through the narrow streets and alleys of the Spanish town of Pamplona. In the dawn of a steamy July morning, I combed my hair. I shaved. I dressed myself deliberately and with great execution in the traditional costume of the bull-runner: white pants, white shirt, red belt, red handkerchief tied around my neck. The men gathered beneath the great cathedral in the center of town. Most of them were drunk. They were all Spaniards. Except for the Japanese guys with the video camera. And the thick-chested frat boys from Texas. And this kid, a nice young man with a degree from Middlebury College.
The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, known to the Spanish as El Encierro (or "the enclosing"), is the seminal event of the weeklong Festival of San Fermin. The run covers a half-mile course through cobblestone streets and alleys so narrow you can almost reach from one wall to the next, before ending in the great stadium of the Plaza del Toros (the Spanish bullring). The origin of El Encierro is practical: the bulls, bred and raised by breeders in the countryside of Pamplona, were once herded from their grazing pastures through the city's streets on their way to the Plaza del Toros, where they were expected to die by the sword of the matador.
Lore suggests that the original runners of El Encierro were the peasant butcher boys. The young men, perhaps overtaken by the sublime presence of these horned beasts, burst into the streets to run with the bulls on their way to the arena. Many of the runners were fatally gored and trampled. It is still unclear as to what compelled these young pioneers of El Encierro to risk their lives in the streets of Pamplona. An old man of Navarra province once told me: "A young man cannot resist the magic of beauty and danger." Perhaps.
The crowds along the streets were impenetrable. Police weeded out runners who were too drunk to walk. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the Spaniards clapped and danced to melodic chants, the Japanese looked worried, and the boys from Texas leaned on one another, drunk and happy. Words to adequately describe this mishmash of the human condition—an amalgamation of violence, stupidity, joy, fear, grandiosity, absurdity—escape me to this day.
Every man wore a red handkerchief around his neck. The white shirts and pants of many bore large purple circles of wine stains. Above us, spectators teetered on balconies that lined the street; as we nervously awaited the bulls' release, these onlookers laughed and clapped and sang. Journalists took pictures. We are heroes, I briefly thought. No, we are stupid young men.
Then the first rocket exploded (they use rockets—rockets!—to signify the release of the bulls), and the crowd separated along the 900-meter course. I chose to run from a spot high on La Estafeta, the third and final leg of the run that ends in the bullring. La Estafeta is a narrow alley with no routes of escape but for a three-meter stretch of head-high wooden fence.
In the first section, the most courageous (and foolhardy) of the men face the bulls in what is called the Passage of Santo Domingo. The men of Santo Domingo are chased uphill when the legs and lungs of the bulls are fresh and vigorous.
The middle section is short, wide, and relatively safe. It begins at the end of Santo Domingo and ends at the first corner of La Estafeta. Once past this corner, the herd enters a narrow cobblestone passage that continues uninterrupted for nearly 300 yards.
The hoof-beating approach of the bulls charging down La Estafeta can be compared to nothing but the towering winter swells of the open Atlantic. It is a spectacle that is dark, powerful, and imminent. But what is most stunning, incomprehensible even, is the color: a rippling, approaching black force bursting through a fleeing, drunken mob of white and red.
The first bull tore through the crowd, catching a man in his lower back and tossing him against the stone walls of the alley. The first bull neared—and I froze. As the bull approached me (far more swiftly than I imagined), I could do nothing but press myself against the high wall of the alley. I waited. I might have closed my eyes. The horns approached the soft flesh of my stomach—and continued on. He didn't want me.
Eight steers—some gray, some white, some mottled—were added to the mix to create the ambience of a herd. A bull in isolation is the most dangerous: it will thrash and charge relentlessly, defending itself from all angles. There is folklore about certain bulls, once isolated from their herd, having killed eight men in one sequence of charges. But a group of bulls among steers will conform to the fluid shape of a herd. In theory, they'll ignore the men running through the streets. This is a psychological fact about bulls that is true. Or so I hoped.
It was on the tail of the fourth bull that I dashed into an opening in front of two charging steers. If there is any bit of strategy in running with the bulls, it is this: because of a bull's herd psychology, if one can fall into the wild cadence of the herd, one can run safely amongst the bulls.
To my right and left, the bulls and steers plowed and gored aberrant runners. People collapsed in the street, and fleeing runners crushed one another against the wooden barricades and stone walls. Many of those who stumbled were trampled or gored. But amid the chaos was the beauty and fluency of the herd. There is something ancient and unspeakable about running amongst a pack of massive beasts.
Through the shadowy arches of the stadium we ran, men falling and scrambling on their knees (you have to hurdle the fallen runners, or kick them clear, to remain safe within the herd) until we entered the great dirt circle of the Plaza del Toros.
Inside the ring, men threw themselves over the wooden barriers and into the stands, tearing at one another to find safety. The brave and the drunk challenged the bulls in the posture of matadors. A British kid was on his knees, vomiting, until a pair of Spaniards threw him over the six-foot-tall barricade. A second rocket sounded, signifying that all the bulls had entered the stadium. A great cheer rose from the thousands of spectators. The entire run lasted two minutes and nine seconds.
No one died that day, though a 22-year-old kid from the province of Navarra had been gored seven times by three different bulls and lay close to death in a nearby hospital. I emerged unscathed, but my psyche was not so fortunate. Nearly 800 years have passed since the first peasant butcher boys were drawn to the running of the bulls, and humans are still captivated by the primitive trance of the bulls, unable to resist the magic of beauty and danger.
Indeed, the lure is strong, but the experience takes its toll.
In Pamplona, I ran with the bulls in the red of morning across the ancient cobbled streets, beneath the balconies of children and grandparents and journalists and tourists, through the great arch of the stadium, across the orange dirt of the bullring. When the last bull had been herded into the stocks beneath the stadium, my life, in its ordinary invisibility and abstraction, revealed itself with a material freshness, with a texture and a flavorand a value. Yet in gaining this insight I also learned how precarious life is, and I swear to myself that never, ever, again will I run with the bulls through the cobblestone streets of Pamplona.
A freelance writer, Jaed Coffin '02 has kayaked solo from Seattle to southeastern Alaska.