Every account of the last night of San Fermín describes the same picture: a crowd packed into the Plaza Consistorial at midnight on July 14, holding lit candles, singing Pobre de mí as the fiesta ends. Even Encierro’s own history of that ceremony mentions, in passing, that some of the crowd then carries those same candles and pañuelos to the gates of a nearby church and calls it a modern, informal habit with no real backstory.
That undersells it badly. The gates belong to the Chapel of San Fermín, inside the Church of San Lorenzo, which has held the saint’s own relics since 1717. The candle offering left there might be a recent, grassroots gesture, but the place it lands on is not: it is the seat of a religious brotherhood founded in 1885, a mass tracing back to 1689, and a devotional image whose upkeep, candles included, has been funded by parish donations for centuries. Nobody explains that part, including us, until now.
This account draws on Pamplona’s own city tourism records, the published schedule and history of the Parroquia de San Lorenzo (the parish that has custody of the saint’s chapel), and cross-verified press photography from two separate outlets that documented the candle offering on the same night, each independently.
Pobre de Mí Ends at the Town Hall. Pamplona’s Candles Don’t.
The ceremony everyone knows happens at midnight on July 14. The mayor announces the end of the fiestas from the balcony of the Ayuntamiento, the crowd raises its red pañuelos, and the plaza, lit by hundreds of candles, sings the closing lament: “Pobre de mí, pobre de mí, que se han acabado las fiestas de San Fermín.” That ceremony began as an informal mock funeral staged by a Pamplona painter and his friends in the 1920s, and the city only adopted it as a formal closing act in 1968.
What almost nobody documents in any depth is what happens next, or where it happens. Minutes after the singing ends, crowds move away from the Ayuntamiento toward the Church of San Lorenzo, home to the Chapel of San Fermín, and leave their candles and pañuelos there. A 2025 photo essay from the Navarra edition of okdiario, captioned “hundreds of people wanted to leave their handkerchief and light candles in honor of San Fermín at the doors of San Lorenzo,” documents the scene directly. A separate report from Crónica Vasca confirms the same detail independently: after the singing, attendees “usually untie the handkerchief and, in many cases, tie it to the iron gate of the Church of San Lorenzo, closing the festive cycle.”
Two ceremonies, two locations, two different meanings, on the same night. The Ayuntamiento’s candle marks a civic, municipal farewell to nine days of partying, the same Pobre de Mí ceremony documented elsewhere on this site. The candle left at San Lorenzo is an offering to the saint himself, and it belongs to a much older tradition than 1968.
The Chapel Behind the Candles
The Chapel of San Fermín sits inside the Church of San Lorenzo on Calle Mayor, in the heart of Pamplona’s old town. It was built between 1696 and 1717 by Santiago Raón, Fray Juan de Alegría, and Martín de Zaldúa, replacing an earlier Baroque chapel on the same site. The image at its center, a wooden bust reliquary carved in the late 1400s and later fitted in silver in 1687, holds a portion of the saint’s actual relics in an oval reliquary set into its chest. It was placed in its current chapel on July 6, 1717, and every July 7, the feast day of San Fermín, it is the only day the image leaves that chapel, carried through the old town in the Procesión de San Fermín.
Locals call the image the “santo morenico,” the dark faced saint. Pamplona’s own city tourism office notes that nobody knows for certain whether the original carving depicted a dark skinned figure or whether its face has simply darkened over the centuries from candle smoke, a small detail that ties the chapel’s daily devotion directly back to the candles left at its door every July 14.
The chapel has a literary footnote too, one covered in more detail in Encierro’s account of Hemingway’s real history with the fiesta. Ernest Hemingway wrote to Ezra Pound on July 19, 1924, “Recé a San Fermín por ti” (“I prayed to San Fermín for you”), and in The Sun Also Rises, Brett and Jake step inside this same chapel during the fiesta to sit quietly among the crowd of people praying.
Why People Leave Candles for a Saint
The devotion behind those candles has an institution attached to it. The Corte de San Fermín, a religious association founded in 1885, exists specifically to maintain and promote devotion to the saint. According to its own tradition, it was founded in gratitude after San Fermín was credited with sparing Pamplona from epidemics that had struck neighboring regions. Its office sits at the parish of San Lorenzo, and the parish priest always serves as its president.
The parish’s own published schedule for the chapel lists donations that go specifically toward “flores, velas, luz, mantenimiento capilla,” flowers, candles, lighting, and the chapel’s upkeep, alongside a weekly “Despedida a San Fermín” held after Saturday and Sunday evening mass and a “Beso al Santo” veneration, where visitors venerate a medal set into the back of the image. None of this is festival spectacle. It runs year round, fiesta or not, which is exactly why the candles left at the gate every July 14 read differently once you know what funds them the rest of the year.
The Morning Ritual Nobody Films: The Función de la Octava
Hours before any candle is lit that night, the city’s Corporación Municipal walks in formal procession from the Plaza Consistorial to the Church of San Lorenzo on the morning of July 14 itself, for the Función de la Octava, a solemn mass held in the saint’s honor. Its origin is specific and documented: in July 1689, Pamplona was in formal mourning for the death of Queen María Luisa de Orleans, wife of Carlos II, which forced the cancellation of that year’s bullfights, fireworks, and dances. The Ayuntamiento redirected the money saved from those cancellations into funding a new daily sung mass in the saint’s honor, and asked future councils to keep the tradition going. It has continued in some form ever since, and the modern program still lists it each year at 10:45 on the morning of July 14.
So the last day of San Fermín, seen through its candles rather than its bullfights, actually runs in three acts: a formal civic mass at San Lorenzo in the morning, tracing back to 1689; the informal, much younger Pobre de mí at the Ayuntamiento at midnight; and, in the same hour, an offering of candles and pañuelos at the gates of the same chapel the morning mass was held in. Almost every visitor experiences the middle one. Very few know about the other two.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the velas of San Fermín?
The velas are the candles associated with the closing night of San Fermín, July 14. There are two distinct traditions: the candles held during the Pobre de mí ceremony at the Plaza Consistorial, and the candles left as a devotional offering, alongside red pañuelos, at the gates of the Church of San Lorenzo minutes later.
Where do people leave candles during San Fermín?
After the Pobre de mí ceremony ends at the Ayuntamiento, crowds carry their candles and untied pañuelos to the Church of San Lorenzo, home to the Chapel of San Fermín, and leave them at its gates as an offering to the saint.
Why do people tie pañuelos to the gate of the Church of San Lorenzo?
The gesture closes the festive cycle. Pamplonese wear the red pañuelo from the txupinazo on July 6 until the closing night of the fiesta, and leaving it at the saint’s chapel, rather than simply removing it, turns the closing gesture into a devotional one rather than a purely social one.
What is the Función de la Octava?
The Función de la Octava is a solemn mass held at the Chapel of San Fermín on the morning of July 14, attended by Pamplona’s Corporación Municipal in formal procession from the Plaza Consistorial. It originated in 1689, funded from money the city saved by cancelling that year’s bullfights, fireworks, and dances during a period of royal mourning.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.