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Local TraditionsLocal Traditions
Local Traditions
The common people of Spain have an Oriental passion for story-telling and
are fond of the marvellous. They will gather round the doors of their cottages
in summer evenings, or in the great cavernous chimney-corners of the ventas in
the winter, and listen with insatiable delight to miraculous legends of
saints, perilous adventures of travellers, and daring exploits of robbers and
contrabandistas. The wild and solitary character of the country, the imperfect
diffusion of knowledge, the scarceness of general topics of conversation, and
the romantic adventurous life that every one leads in a land where travelling
is yet in its primitive state, all contribute to cherish this love of oral
narration, and to produce a strong infusion of the extravagant and incredible.
There is no theme, however, more prevalent and popular than that of treasures
buried by the Moors; it pervades the whole country. In traversing the wild
sierras, the scenes of ancient foray and exploit, you cannot see a Moorish
atalaya, or watch power, perched among the cliffs, or beetling above its
rock-built village, but your muleteer, on being closely questioned, will
suspend the smoking of his cigarillo to tell some tale of Moslem gold buried
beneath its foundations; nor is there a ruined alcazar in a city but has its
golden tradition, handed down from generation to generation among the poor
people of the neighborhood.
These, like most popular fictions, have sprung from some scanty
groundwork of fact. During the wars between Moor and Christian which
distracted this country for centuries, towns and castles were liable
frequently and suddenly to change owners, and the inhabitants, during sieges
and assaults, were fain to bury their money and jewels in the earth, or hide
them in vaults and wells, as is often done at the present day in the despotic
and belligerent countries of the East. At the time of the expulsion of the
Moors also, many of them concealed their most precious effects, hoping that
their exile would be but temporary, and that they would be enabled to return
and retrieve their treasures at some future day. It is certain that from
time to time hoards of gold and silver coin have been accidentally digged up,
after a lapse of centuries, from among the ruins of Moorish fortresses and
habitations; and it requires but a few facts of the kind to give birth to a
thousand fictions.
The stories thus originating have generally something of an Oriental
tinge, and are marked with that mixture of the Arabic and the Gothic which
seems to me to characterize every thing in Spain, and especially in its
southern provinces. The hidden wealth is always laid under magic spell, and
secured by charm and talisman. Sometimes it is guarded by uncouth monsters or
fiery dragons, sometimes by enchanted Moors, who sit by it in armor, with
drawn swords, but motionless as statues, maintaining a sleepless watch for
ages.
The Alhambra of course, from the peculiar circumstances of its history,
is a strong-hold for popular fictions of the kind; and various relics, digged
up from time to time, have contributed to strengthen them. At one time an
earthen vessel was found containing Moorish coins and the skeleton of a cock,
which, according to the opinion of certain shrewd inspectors, must have been
buried alive. At another time a vessel was dug up containing a great
scarabaeus or beetle of baked clay, covered with Arabic inscriptions, which
was pronounced a prodigious amulet of occult virtues. In this way the wits
of the ragged brood who inhabit the Alhambra have been set wool-gathering,
until there is not a hall, nor tower, nor vault, of the old fortress, that has
not been made the scene of some marvellous tradition. Having, I trust, in the
preceding papers made the reader in some degree familiar with the localities
of the Alhambra, I shall now launch out more largely into the wonderful
legends connected with it, and which I have diligently wrought into shape and
form, from various legendary scraps and hints picked up in the course of my
perambulations; in the same manner, that an antiquary works out a regular
historical document from a few scattered letters of an almost defaced
inscription.
If any thing in these legends should shock the faith of the
over-scrupulous reader, he must remember the nature of the place, and make
due allowances. He must not expect here the same laws of probability that
govern commonplace scenes and everyday life; he must remember that he treads
the halls of an enchanted palace, and that all is "haunted ground."
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