In the presumably lovely Spanish village of Manganeses de la Polvorosa, the entire village gathers to celebrate the feast day of St. Vincent Saragossa with food, revelry, lots of wine (naturally), and the centerpiece: taking a live goat to the top of the 50-foot church belfry and tossing it to the ground. (It's caught in a tarp at the bottom, so it's not as messy as it sounds.)
The origins of the part involving the goat are (as the saying goes) shrouded in mystery. One account involves a medieval priest who was known for providing milk to the poor from his own goat. Another has a goat sneaking up to steal the food the priest put out for the birds, then leaping to the ground and surviving to run for the hills. The authorities have tried to put the kibosh on the fiesta since 1992, but still the wine flows, the music plays and the goat plummets. (I don't want to think about how many of the critters, over the course of centuries, have missed the tarp and gone on to be goat paté.)
Being Catholic seems to be a lot more fun in Spain. Why don't we ever toss animals from towers on feast days? It's not fair!
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