Alexander Fiske-Harrison: Author, Bull-Runner and Scholar of the Bulls
Alexander Fiske-Harrison is a British writer, journalist, conservationist, bull-runner and former amateur bull-fighter. Brought up in England, he moved to Spain in his thirties. He studied large mammal zoology and animal behaviour at the University of Oxford, then went on to postgraduate work on the foundations of biology and animal consciousness at the University of London.
While researching a book, he trained as a bullfighter in Andalusia with matadors including Juan José Padilla, Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez and Eduardo Dávila Miura. His book Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight made the shortlist for the William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award 2011, and his story of 1950s Paris and Pamplona, 'Les Invincibles', was shortlisted for The Hemingway Prize 2016 in France. In Spain he has lectured at the Foundation of Taurine Studies and the University of Seville, and spoken for the Ambassador of Spain to the United Kingdom.
Writing and Broadcasting About the World of the Bulls
His reporting on the bullfighting world has been published and broadcast by national and international outlets such as The Times, The New York Times, Newsweek, GQ magazine, the BBC, CNN and the Discovery Channel. He first ran with the bulls in Pamplona in 2009 and, except for 2010 — when he was bullfighting in Andalusia — has taken part every year since in the encierros of San Fermín, along with runs in other Spanish towns including San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid), Cuéllar (Castile and León), Tafalla and Falces (Navarre).
El Toro Bravo: A Myth That Lives
“It's when the dreams start, the nightmares, the ones with black shadows, the ones with horns. That's when you know it's coming; that's when you know it's really begun.” Bull-runners whisper these lines to each other in bars and restaurants, in letters, emails and social media groups. The talk carries on all year, yet a shiver of anxiety, trepidation and dread enters our voices as the spring sun climbs. Somewhere deep in the unconscious, the Vernal Equinox stirs dark things: memories, fears and the ghosts of bulls we have run with and nearly died with.
On every day I have run in Pamplona — the greatest and most famous encierro of them all — my fears for myself have been equalled by my fears for others. That is why this book was needed. At each of those forty-odd San Fermín encierros (as of 2016) I have been struck by how many newcomers appear to think these animals are somehow harmless, even tame — otherwise, how would the event be permitted? Who would let unsuspecting tourists loose in a street with half-ton horned animals that have never seen a man on the ground before? To borrow from The Go-Between, Spain is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
What the Encierro Teaches
During my fourth encierro, in Pamplona in 2011, I was pinned against the fence by a panicked crush of bodies, unable to move, while a four-year-old, 585kg Spanish fighting bull charged straight at me. That day the bull, Empleado, from the notoriously dangerous Cebado Gago ranch, picked the man next to me instead. He went to hospital while I went to Bar Txoko — and it was the bull that decided who went where. That day made me as a bull-runner, and I have not run the same way since.
That is why in 2015 in Cuéllar, the Old Castilian town that hosts the most ancient encierro in the world, I kept a sensible distance from a bull whose left horn was smeared with the blood of a man he had just killed. On video it seems like a glancing blow: the bull runs past and dips its head as if bowing in respect, yet in a movement too quick for the human eye it drove its horn up beneath the man's ribs and burst his heart inside his chest. All told, fifteen people died in bull-running events across Spain that year.
During an encierro the streets themselves turn into a plaza de toros. In earlier times the bull-run and the bullfight were almost impossible to tell apart: the encierro frequently finished in the town square, sealed off with wagons or makeshift barricades, where a capea, or informal bullfight, would get under way. In Pamplona, where emergency services are on standby and medical expertise is that of a major city rather than a village, there have been only fifteen deaths since records began in the 1920s. That is why, unless you know what you are doing — and above all what to do when things go wrong — you needlessly and hugely raise your chances of leaving on a stretcher if you are lucky, and in a body-bag if you are not.
The Streets Are Not Ours
The earliest recorded death was Esteban Domeño Laborra, from Sangüesa (which also holds an encierro), in 1924 — an account of it appears in The Sun Also Rises, since Hemingway was there that year. The most recent was Daniel Jimeno Romero, from Alcalá de Henares (which also holds an encierro), in 2009 — an account appears in Into The Arena, as I was there that year. Today between fifteen hundred and three thousand people run in each of the eight daily encierros, and with only two fatalities this century the Pamplona fatality rate stands at roughly 1 in 150,000 runs. That is about the same as jumping out of an aeroplane: according to the United States Parachute Association, of 3.5 million jumps in 2015 there were 21 fatal accidents. Yet there is one big difference between skydiving and bull-running: before their first parachute jump, people are always taught.
Running with the bulls is a tradition passed down through generations in Pamplona and beyond, and understanding its history, its risks and the people who take part makes the experience far richer. Whether you are reading for research, for the stories or simply out of curiosity, these pages gather the writing, the photographs and the firsthand accounts that explain what the encierro really involves.