Last modified: 2015-01-08 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/e/es-so-ba.gif)
Flag of Baraona - Image by Alfonso Muñoz, 6 January 2011
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The municipality of Baraona (187 inhabitants in 2009; 11,659 ha; unofficial website) is located in the south of Soria Province, 60 km from Soria. The municipality is made of the villages of Baraona (capital; 119 inh. in 2003), Jodra de Cardos (28 inh.), Pinilla del Olme (12 inh.) and Romanillos de Medinaceli (58 inh.).
Baraona is best known under its traditional name of Barahona de las Brujas ("of the witches"). The village was indeed considered as a witches' den by the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th century. A standing rock pierced with a hole and engraved with a cross in its upper part is still known as Mojón-Confesionario de las Brujas, the Witches' Confessional Post, recalling that the local witches used to put their head in the hole to confess. Another geological structure called Pozos Airones serves as a catchment basin for all local surface waters; the tradition says that this place results from witches gathering there and repeatedly hitting the soil with their bottom.
Ivan Sache, 26 December 2010
The flag and arms of Baraona are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 29
June 2000 by the Municipal Council, signed on 22 October
2003 by the Mayor, and published on 3 November 2003 in the official gazette of
Castilla y León, No. 213, p. 14,581 (text).
The symbols are described
as follows:
Flag: Rectangular flag with proportions 2:3, made of a red panel with a white triangle with its vertices in lower fly and in the midpoints of hoist and of the upper flag's edge, and a red castle in the upper hoist canton.
Coat of arms: Gules a lady argent riding a horse holding a sword in canton a castle or masoned sable port and windows azure. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.
The castle alludes either to Castile or to the upper point of the village, known as el castillo; this is today the site of the parish church but there is no evidence that a castle was ever built there. However, the local tradition says that the church's tower belonged to the castle and was linked to the neighbouring fortresses by several secrete passages, yet to be found.
Ivan Sache, 26 December 2010