Salto de Roldán

Salto de Roldán (English: 'Roland's Leap') is a rock formation about 25 km (20 mi) north of Huesca in High Aragon, northern Spain, in the foothills of the central Pyrenees.

[1][3][5] Salto de Roldán is what remains of a syncline (a U-shaped fold) of multiple strata of conglomerate limestone rock laid down in the Tertiary period which has been selectively eroded by riverwater.

[4][c] French Pyrenean explorer, photographer and writer Lucien Briet [fr] (1860-1921) was in 1907 an early visitor to Salto de Roldán.

He thought that the post-Reconquista Christian sanctuary on Peña de San Miguel must have been built on the site of an earlier pagan temple.

It is possible to climb to the top of Peña San Miguel; though this involves negotiating two ladders made of metal staples driven into the rock, which are not for the faint of heart.

[1][3][4] Vegetation around Salto de Roldán includes flowers such as Pyrenean-violet, corona de rey [es], St. Anthony's turnip, farolito,[d] and abejeta,[e] aromatic herbs such as rosemary and thyme, trees such as box and kermes oak, and various orchids including yellow-fringed orchid and sombre bee-orchid.

[11] In 942, Muhammad ibn Mashim al Tuyibi, lord of Zaragoza, retook it; a victory which was celebrated in the Mosque of Córdoba.

In the main legend, Roland (Spanish: Roldán), the foremost of Charlemagne's paladins, was being hotly pursued by Saracens, the Muslim Arab occupiers of Spain.

[12][14] (According to the scanty historical record, Roland died in 778 commanding the rearguard of Charlemagne's army at the Battle of Roncesvalles, about 110 km (70 mi) to the northwest.

A legend of a different kind altogether has a gigantic spider squatting to span the crags and spinning her silk down into the abyss.

During winter nights, especially on Fridays, or on Easter Day, they would fly to Peña de San Miguel to prepare their misdeeds; and men would try to shoot them out of the air using shotguns loaded with wax pellets which had been blessed by a priest.

[4] Both the modern Coat of Arms of Huesca (es) (which date from the 16th century) and its mediaeval predecessor (from the 13th) include at their top the device of a block having a V-shaped notch.