San Fermín 1946 had five bull runs (encierros): July 7, 8, 9 and 10, and one more on Sunday, July 14, the octave of San Fermín. They started at eight, which, the paper explained, was the old six: “las seis de antes”. The last, on July 14, was “quizá el más emocionante y el más bonito”, perhaps the most exciting and the finest of the year.1, 8, 13
By Encierro · Last reviewed
The mayor’s bando set “los encierros que se celebrarán con motivo de las Fiestas de San Fermín los días 7, 8, 9, 10 y 14” at eight, on the course from the Rochapea gate by Santo Domingo, the Plaza Consistorial, Doña Blanca de Navarra and Estafeta to the ring, with the clock of San Saturnino as the official time.1
Outside reporters got the hour wrong. One wrote that the encierro was at six sharp, at dawn. The paper corrected him: “el encierro se hace á las ocho que, como dicen los aldeanos, son «las seis de antes»”, eight on the clock being, as the villagers said, the old six. The signal was a rocket, not a cannon-like petard, and the bulls did not run the course in two minutes.8
When a man was killed running before the bulls at Vila Franca de Xira in Portugal, and a Madrid paper’s headline brought up San Fermín, the paper replied that “para correr delante de los toros, hay que saber correr, como saben los de Pamplona”: to run before the bulls you have to know how to run, as Pamplona’s runners do.11
| Date | Run | Ranch (ganadería) | What the paper reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 7 | 1 | Juan Pedro Domecq | The ring packed to the flagpole |
| July 8 | 2 | Joaquín Buendía | A bull alone in Estafeta, bothering no one |
| July 9 | 3 | Clemente Tassara | A bull fell to its knees beside a fallen runner |
| July 10 | 4 | Carmen de Federico | Watched by the Pax Romana delegates |
| July 14 | 5, last | Isaías and Julio Vázquez | A lone bull; a man fined for holding its tail |
Run 1 of 5
For the first encierro the ring was packed, every seat taken “hasta el palo de la bandera”, up to the flagpole, as the saying went: a mass of people that was impressive and frightening. The bulls of the day were those of Domecq.1, 3, 2
Run 2 of 5
Without the slightest unpleasant incident, the second encierro had more emotion than Sunday’s and was finer to watch. One bull broke completely away from the others and “se quedó solo en la calle Estafeta, sin meterse con nadie”: it stayed alone in Estafeta, bothering no one despite the young men shouting at it, and waited for the steers to come and take it to the corrals, where the others had gone in close together. The bulls were the Buendía “colomas”, of Santa Coloma blood.4, 5
Run 3 of 5
“A las ocho de la mañana encierro de los toros”, the programme said, with the bulls of Clemente Tassara.7, 6 The run was “otro entre los calificados de normales”, another of the normal ones, except for one moment in the Plaza Consistorial: a bull a little ahead of the rest went for a young man who had just fallen, but it fell too, beside him, and stayed on its knees as if pleading. It got up, startled, and ran on up Estafeta, while the young man stayed on the ground with the other bulls almost upon him, and came through.9
Run 4 of 5
The programme set the encierro at eight.9 Among the crowd were the delegates of the Pax Romana Catholic congress, who after watching the encierro left with the civil governor, Juan Junquera, to visit a youth camp in the Ultzama valley. The bulls were those of doña Carmen de Federico.10
Run 5 of 5, the last
“A las ocho en punto se verificará el último encierro”, the programme announced for the Sunday of the octave, the last day of the fiesta; the bulls were those of Isaías and Julio Vázquez, of Seville.12, 14 It was “quizá el más emocionante y el más bonito de los de este año”: one bull stayed behind, spread alarm among the runners and entered the ring alone, master of the situation, sparing the reckless man who grabbed a horn in the street and the other who pulled its tail and, hanging on, reached the arena with it.13 The mayor fined the tail-puller 200 pesetas.15
A smiling horseman raises his plumed hat in greeting from a bay horse decked with red and yellow ribbons, while bulls and runners rush across the yellow background. The poster promises “emocionantes encierros”.16
Ollaquindía notes that the back cover of the 1946 programme showed the fairground rides, a girl going round and round on a cardboard horse, and that the fair was set up, as the year before, on the open ground at the end of the Avenida de Carlos III.17
The old six
In 1946 the encierro was at eight on the clock, but country people called it “las seis de antes”, the old six.8
Words of 1946
“Saber correr”, knowing how to run, was the paper’s answer to the death at Vila Franca de Xira. The encierros it called “normales” were those without incident.11, 9
Photographs
The city’s photo archive, the Fototeca de Pamplona, holds historic photographs of the encierro, free to view online.18
San Fermín 1946 had five bull runs at eight in the morning, on July 7, 8, 9 and 10, 1946, and on Sunday, July 14, the octave of San Fermín, as the mayor’s bando set them.1, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12
Country people called the eight o’clock encierro of 1946 “las seis de antes”, the old six, the Diario de Navarra explained, correcting an outside reporter who wrote that the run was at six at dawn.8
The mayor’s bando of 1946 set the route of the running of the bulls from the Rochapea gate by Santo Domingo, the Plaza Consistorial, Doña Blanca de Navarra and Estafeta to the ring, with the clock of San Saturnino as the official time.1
A bull stayed behind and entered the ring alone in the last encierro of 1946, on July 14, sparing a man who grabbed its horn in the street and another who held its tail into the arena; the mayor fined the tail-puller 200 pesetas.13, 15
L. de Sotés made the San Fermín 1946 poster, signed on the poster itself: a smiling horseman raising his plumed hat from a bay horse decked with ribbons, with bulls and runners rushing behind.16
Numbers on the page refer to this list. Diario de Navarra pages are cited from its archive (hemeroteca); quotations in Spanish are given as printed, in the spelling of the day.
Encierro. “Running of the Bulls 1946: San Fermín in Pamplona.” Encierro.com, November 9, 2026. https://encierro.com/san-fermin-1946/