"Aigües encantades" by Joan Puig i Ferreter is a Catalan stage drama written in the early 20th century. Set in a mountain village gripped by drought, it pits religious tradition and sacred legends about “enchanted” waters against a modern, rational bid to capture and distribute that water. The central figures include the rebellious student-teacher Cecilia, her devout parents Pere Amat and Juliana, the wavering schoolmaster Vergés, the forceful priest Mossèn Gregori, and a persuasive outsider who promises practical salvation. The result is a charged portrait of faith, fear, progress, and community power.The opening of the play presents a tense home scene: while bells toll for a penitential procession, Cecilia rejects the village’s rites, sparring with Vergés and clashing bitterly with her authoritarian father and sorrowful mother. News spreads of a well-spoken foraster who claims the village can draw real water from the supposedly sacred pools, and Mossèn Gregori quietly prepares to neutralize him. A scandal erupts when Amat reports that Cecilia has publicly embraced the newcomer, hardening his resolve against her. In the next scene, at the shepherd Romanill’s courtyard, villagers gather; the batlle and Amat try to intimidate the host, but a crowd floods in as the outsider—an engineer—insists he brings peace and a practical plan, not an assault on belief. The people waver between curiosity and hostility as he begins to explain that the “enchanted” waters are living and accessi…
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