The King presides over a period of misrule in which conventional social rules may be broken and reckless behavior is encouraged. Festivities are held in the open air, beginning with a cercavila, a ritual procession throughout the town to call everyone to attend. Rues of masked revelers dance alongside. On Thursday Dijous Gras (Fat Thursday) is celebrated, also called 'omelette day' (el dia de la truita), coques (de llardons, butifarra d'ou, butifarra) and omelettes are eaten. The festivities end on Ash Wednesday with elaborate funeral rituals marking the death of King Carnival, who is typically burned on a pyre in what is called the burial of the sardine (enterrament de la sardina), or, in Vilanova, as l'enterro.
When may conventional social rules be broken?
a period of misrule