Mataelpino
Comunidad de Madrid
Transparent Castilian compound mata + el pino ('pine scrubland' or 'pine low-forest'). The base mata, from late Hispanic Latin matta of probable pre-Roman Celtic origin *mattos ('terrain covered with scrub, low forest'), describes the forest formation characteristic of the mountain foothills before the dense pinewood.
Evolution of the name
- *mattos / matta Celtic / late Latin before the 9th century
- Mataelpino medieval Castilian from the 15th century
Reflections, to the letter
The name promises a pine — the thicket of the pine, the low wood that grew around that one tree — and the walker looks for it in vain. None survives today: oaks, holm oaks, ash and juniper grow here, never pines. Scholars of the Toponomasticon Hispaniae suspect a single isolated pine once marked the plot and gave the place its name; when the tree died, the name stayed on, keeping watch over its absence.
Glossary
- Boloencierro
- Alternative bull festivity invented in Mataelpino in 2011 as a substitute for the traditional bull run. Twenty blue polystyrene balls three metres in diameter and one hundred kilos in weight are released downhill through the alleyways of the urban centre, chasing the runners. The formula combines the dynamic of the Pamplona run with the innocuous character of play, without animal suffering. It has been replicated in a dozen Spanish localities.
- Pre-Roman
- Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
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Camino de Madrid