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<\/a>- \n
- During his studies, Jos\u00e9 Antonio de San Sebasti\u00e1n, otherwise known as Father Donostia, recorded several Christmas carols from the local towns during his breaks. He found a belief in\u00a0Lekaroz<\/a>, a small town in Nafarroa, that on the day of Urtezar (New Year\u2019s Eve, December 31st), at midnight, the waters of the river Urandia turned into wine. The local girls would go to fetch the water. As they then made their rounds of the village, if they found the doors of any house open, they would throw the water on those who were in bed, on members of their family, and on the young people.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- While traditions associated with water and the new year have largely been lost in the Basque Country, there are still places where it remains. In\u00a0Urdiain<\/a>, at midnight of New Year\u2019s Eve, the young men of the town, carry a jug of water,\u00a0ur berria<\/em>, and sing a traditional song of offering. The town authorities taste the water and thus the new year officially begins in Urdi\u00e1in.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- One of those ritual songs is \u201cUrtararats\u201d or \u201cNew Water.\u201d These songs typically request \u201cosasuna eta pakea<\/em>\u201d \u2013 health and peace. In Elizondo, as they collect the first waters that flow from the fountains after midnight, they sing: \u201cUrte berri, berri \/ Zer dakarrazu berri \/ Uraren gana \/ Bakia ta osasuna \/ Urtes, Urtes!<\/em>\u201d \u2013 \u201cNew year, new year \/ What do you bring new year \/ Peace and health \/ New year, new year!\u201d This new water of the new year was thought to have curative virtues.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- At least one researcher speculated that the idea of \u201cnew water\u201d originates from the ice age. The hypothesis is that it was about that time of year that ice began to melt and water began to flow again. This marked the beginning of the new year, with the new source of water.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Primary sources: \u00a0La Navidad del Padre Donostia en Baztan<\/a><\/em>\u00a0by Lander Santamaria, Noticias de Navarra; Larrinaga, Josu. Mitolog\u00eda<\/em>. Au\u00f1amendi Encyclopedia, 2025. Available at:\u00a0https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/mitologia\/ar-96329\/<\/a>; Medicina y M\u00fasica popular Vasca\u00a0(Medicine and Basque Folk Music)<\/a><\/em>\u00a0by Angel Goicoetxea Marcaida, Munibe 42, 441 (1990)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Happy New Year! Urte Berri On! Around the world, the new year is ushered in with various customs. In the Basque Country, there has been a tradition associating the new year with water, particularly \u201cnew water,\u201d water that represents a fresh start, a new beginning. While this tradition has disappeared from much of Euskal Herria, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[836,12],"tags":[4238,4239,4240,4241,4242],"class_list":["post-7746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-folklore","tag-father-donostia","tag-lekaroz","tag-new-yaer","tag-urdiain","tag-water"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-46.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-20W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7748,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7746\/revisions\/7748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- While traditions associated with water and the new year have largely been lost in the Basque Country, there are still places where it remains. In\u00a0Urdiain<\/a>, at midnight of New Year\u2019s Eve, the young men of the town, carry a jug of water,\u00a0ur berria<\/em>, and sing a traditional song of offering. The town authorities taste the water and thus the new year officially begins in Urdi\u00e1in.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n