British saints do not loom large in Mallorca's fiestas. Pre-eminent among them, it could be argued, is Saint Simon Stock, the Carmelite who in 1251 had the vision of the Virgin Mary which was to give rise to one of the summer's main fiestas - Our Lady of Carmel (Mare de Déu del Carme) in July. But Simon himself isn't celebrated; he merely provided the wherewithal for a grand Marian celebration.
Of greater importance in celebratory terms is Saint Ursula. Depending on which version one prefers, Ursula was either from Cornwall or from Wales. The Cornish connection comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth. In the twelfth century, he explained that Ursula was the daughter of Dionotus, a ruler of Cornwall. Geoffrey's claim is disputed on the grounds that he misread words which he took to be Dionotus.
The Welsh connection is stronger, as the village of Llangwyryfon in Ceredigion is the only place in the UK that has a church dedicated to Saint Ursula. It's believed that she came from the area. The name Llangwyryfon provides a big clue as to Ursula's status in Roman martyrology. It means church of the virgins, while a much larger church, the Basilica of Saint Ursula in Cologne, fully recognises the legend that surrounds her.
Geoffrey of Monmouth wasn't the only one who misread a document. In the ninth century, Wandelbert of Prüm (in Germany) maintained that thousands of saints had been slaughtered by the River Rhine. By the time that Wandelbert was making this assertion, there had been a cult of martyred virgins in Cologne for more than four hundred years. What Wandelbert was to do was to inspire other clerics to give a number of virgins. They settled on 11,000, which is generally accepted to have been a misreading that should have been eleven martyred virgins rather than 11,000.
Where Llangwyryfon finds its claims to Ursula somewhat undermined lies with the mediaeval story (perpetuated by Geoffrey of Monmouth) which has it that Ursula, along with her 11,000 handmaidens, set sail to join her future husband, Conan Meriadoc, in what was then known as Armorica (Brittany, more or less). This was at the request of Dionotus. But Ursula, fatefully for her as things were to turn out, decided that she wanted to make a pilgrimage to Rome before getting married. Having had her vows of virginity consecrated by the pope, she and her entourage left for Armorica. It's not known which pope this was, and it's also not known if Conan was aware of the vows.
Anyway, on their journey they arrived in Cologne, which wasn't the most sensible place to go to as it was being besieged by the Huns. The leader of the Huns supposedly fell madly in love with her, and he wasn't unattracted to the other virgins either (whose number probably was only eleven rather than 11,000). Spurning his advances, the virgins were beheaded and Ursula was shot dead with an arrow.
So, this is the unfortunate tale of Ursula and her companions, she having been given the feast day of October 21, which was when the massacre is meant to have taken place in 383. Which brings us to how she came to be so prominent a saint in Mallorca.
Well, there are some close ties between Ursula and a couple of places in Catalonia. There is a chapel to her in the cathedral in Tarragona and she is a patron of the city of Valls. In Mallorca, there aren't such connections, but the celebrations for the saint are at their strongest on the island. It's reckoned that the Festa de les Verges is one of the oldest in Mallorca, and yet there is barely any historical record.
The assumption is, therefore, that the origins for its popularity owe little or anything to a religious festival and pretty much everything to folk tradition. It is a feature of the autumn and a precursor to the most emblematic of all autumn's celebrations, All Saints. The bunyol doughnut is a big thing for All Saints, as it is for Saint Ursula - the doughnut 'season' is said to start on the eve of Saint Ursula (October 20) - but this still doesn't explain how Ursula came to be so rooted in Mallorca's tradition.
It is argued, of course, that virginity was once looked upon as being a value in local culture. In this respect, there is a certain similarity with old traditions for Sant Jordi (Saint George) in April. There are (were) serenades by young men, and they are invited into the homes of their loved ones and prospective wives and offered bunyols and moscatel or nouveau.
Another tradition, that of the serenading young men presenting the gift of a carnation, is said to have been an invention of the Franco regime. Whether it was or it wasn't, the serenading has by and large disappeared. In its stead, and in seeking to keep the spirit of the fiesta alive, folk musicians gather in squares and perform their own serenades. Otherwise, bunyols do a roaring trade in the island's villages.