Spanish Legends and Tales: A Collection of Short Stories
THE KISS
1. Summary:
French troops arrive in Toledo in the early nineteenth century. One of the captains is quartered in a church with some of his soldiers. The next day, officers gather at the Zocodover and ask the captain about his night. He tells them that a noise woke him up, and in the darkness, he saw a beautiful woman, but she was made of marble. At his side stood another statue, this time of a soldier, whom the captain assumed was her husband. Upon hearing this, his comrades decide to go see her that night, providing them with wine. The officers investigate and discover that the statues belong to a famous warrior and his wife, Doña Elvira Castañeda. When they all arrive at the church, they are fascinated and start drinking. A soldier throws a glass of wine in the face of the warrior’s statue. Moments later, the captain tries to kiss the lips of Doña Elvira’s statue, but her husband, made of marble, raises his arm and strikes the officer in the face, causing him to bleed from his mouth, nose, and eyes.
2. Characteristics of the Female Character (Statue of Doña Elvira Castañeda)
Beautiful. Marble (stone). Night. Motionless.
3. Characteristics of the Male Character (Captain):
Young. Hero. Outrageous.
4. Identify the Feelings with the Landscape:
War environment, attentive and mysterious
“Labyrinth of dark streets, tangled and turns.”
“Moorish tower with its bell tower, arched and domed roofs and dark uneven.”
Doubtful and strange environment:
“… Dubious clarity was lost in the heavy shadows ….”
“… Stood out dimly in the darkness, white and motionless like ghosts ….”
Audio description:
“… The soldiers who complained out loud ….”
“… The air, buzzing jailed narrow ….”
5. Presence of Religion:
Real environment:
The story is set in a totally destroyed chapel where the statue is the “protagonist” of marble.
The Moonlight
1. Summary:
Manrique, a very self-enclosed, noble adamant, appreciated solitude to a high degree. His greatest weakness was poetry, and therefore its solitary nature allowed him to think and exercise his mind. On a warm summer night in the woods of Soria, Manrique saw a woman dressed in white who appeared to him to be the perfect woman. The encounter was brief, but she disappeared. For two months, his efforts to find her were in vain.
However, on returning one night to the same place, the scene repeated itself, just as fleeting. He realized that he was pursuing a moonbeam that could be seen among the foliage of the forest where he was. This leads him to think that love and glory are hidden in a moonbeam.
The Gold Bracelet
1. Summary:
Pedro Alfonso de Orellana loved Maria Antunez without limits. One day, he surprised her crying. After much insistence, he learned that she had an obsessive desire for gold jewelry, specifically a bracelet on the image of the Virgen del Sagrario, the patron saint of the city of Toledo.
Driven by his love, that night he quietly entered the Cathedral, seeking the coveted bracelet of the Virgin. However, he could not take it because he saw supernatural beings and hideous vermin, resurrected corpses, in the temple. In these visions, he freaks out and falls, vanishing. The next morning, he is found delirious in the church, holding the bracelet in his hands.
The Mountain of Souls
1. Summary:
This story tells the relationship between two young nobles, one of them a foreign soriano (Beatriz). Returning from the Mount of Souls to the city on All Saints’ Day, she asked about the Mount of Souls, as legend said that on that night, the bells of the monastery rang and the souls of the dead rose. They go to the castle and after dinner, they are in a cozy room where some old people tell stories about demons. They did not speak, only stared into each other’s eyes. When they did speak, they decided to get gifts and that she should depart to his country soon. They agreed that he would give her a jewel, and she would give him a blue stripe that was lost on the mountain that morning. The young man went to look for it and did not return. Beatriz went to bed but could not sleep. Suddenly, she saw the band, which had been sent for her beloved to the mountain, all covered with blood and torn. She screamed, and the servants found her dead with fear.
Maese Perez, the Organist
1. Summary:
Maese Perez is an old organist of the Cathedral of Seville. He is loved by all the people, who admire his playing, which reaches its maximum brilliance in the midnight mass.
It was precisely at this time when the old man died suddenly due to an illness he had. The year after his death, a melody came from the cathedral, angelic but with no one sitting at the organ. There was no doubt it was the spirit of the old man, to the delight of his parishioners.
The White Deer
1. Summary:
A notable named Don Dionis Aragon had fought in the Holy War. He had a daughter, Constanza, who in turn had a personal servant called Garcés. One day, after finishing a game, they all gathered under some trees and Don Dinis told them about a frightened deer that none approached. When a group of white Corzas appeared, headed for a white deer, they also fled in panic. Garcés could not stop thinking about the story of the white deer. He loved Constanza, the lily of the Moncayo, and thought that if he caught the white doe for her, she would surrender to his arms. He left the castle armed, thinking that he would trap the deer. After battling all the elements, he spied her and, thanks to fate, the white deer was caught in a thicket. Trying to catch the doe, Garces spoke, and he was so surprised that he released her. She tried to escape, but he shot an arrow and hit the target. But what he found when he approached the deer was that she was, in fact, his beloved Constanza, who turned into her own blood after being hit by the arrow of her beloved.
The Christ of Calvary
1. Summary:
The king of Castile sends his knights to Toledo. All were welcomed with parties, but the big party was the day before the knights’ departure for war. In this event, the protagonist was Doña Inés de Tordesillas, a beautiful woman with love for all men, but only two were on track to get her heart. These two were called Alonso’s cheek and Lope de Sandoval, who stood out for his performance. On the day of the ceremony, Doña Inés realized that they would have to fight to get her heart. They searched overnight for a place to carry out the duel. Finally, they found a shed lit by a light, where there was a Christ and a skull. The men prayed a prayer and prepared to fight, but drew their swords when the light went out. They returned, returned to take it out, and … the light went out again. This happened several times until finally, a voice rang out, wrapping the knights in deepest fears. After that, they realized that the man did not want that duel to take place.
They decided that Agnes had to choose and went to the balcony ready to seduce her. But what was his surprise to discover Doña Inés saying farewell to her beloved. His first reaction was to dip into his steel and kill the man, but then he thought about it and let out a laugh that echoed, precipitating the departure of Dona Ines.
The next day, on the stage of farewell, Doña Ines was among the bridesmaids, who was uneasy lest the laughter had been caused by the death of one of the knights, but she was relieved to discover that the ranks marching the two men were unharmed.
The Miserere
1. Summary:
A man finds a book in an abbey. The man, reading the book, discovered at the edge of a page a word that he did not know the meaning of, so he asked an old man the meaning of this. The old man recognizes the word and tells the “researcher” an old legend.
It said that some time ago, a man walked into the abbey seeking shelter and a piece of bread. Those who then lived in the abbey did not give him any problem, since virtually it was their job. At dinner, the monks began to ask questions of the newcomer. He was answering almost every question until they reached one of which he did not come out, “what do you do?” The man replied that he was a musician and that at that time, he was at the end of the Miserere for the Lord to forgive all their sins. Upon hearing this, one of the monks gathered there told him that his job was done because at that monastery in the mountains, who had heard the monks chant every night, the Miserere was dead. The musician decided to climb to the monastery and take notes in order to complete the score. He was already inside when he saw that the monastery was rebuilt, only the skeletons of the monks climbed up the mountainside to be placed in a line to sing the song. The stunned man tried to stay alert to the response of so many years of work, but when the monks were on verse 10, he left a big flash frozen and left him unconscious. When he awoke the next day, he went down the mountain to reach the abbey and sought refuge there to write the Miserere. He wrote down everything he heard, but when he tried to write the end, it was impossible. He wrote many drafts but did not. Such was his frustration that he died mad.
Ojos Verdes
1. Summary:
In a hunt, Fernando de Argensola shoots a wounded deer, and it goes into a forest area where neither the hunters nor dogs accessed since it was the source area of the Los Alamos. It was said that whoever dared to enter would pay his daring to face an evil spirit that lived in the area. Fernando went anyway and got to take his piece, but since then, his behavior changed. He looked pale, had become introverted, and went to hunt alone, but never brought any part. His hound Iñigo was worried about his friend and they told him that day in the source, there had been a young girl with beautiful green eyes and bewitching, although he knew that it was the spirit, he needed to see her again. He went back to the source and there, trying to find out who the girl was, he talked to her, confessed his love, and then the lady spoke and told him she loved him, embraced him, and led him into the lake.
The Voice of Silence
1. Summary:
Becquer, walking down the street, heard the voice of a woman but did not know where it came from and who was alone in that place. He came to an inn, and once there, he began to draw and paint the outline of a woman. Two days later, it happened again on the same street, and he heard the same thing again. This time, he decided to follow the voice, and it led him toward a window in an old house. The next day, he asked a Jewish friend who had happened in that house. The friend told him that many years ago, a woman lived there, but it was uninhabited at the time, no one lived there. He went on to tell what he knew. The woman suffered the indifference of her husband, and since then, the white woman’s ghost roams the house by her sweet voice ringing.
The Creation
1. Summary:
Indian poem.
Part I: Talk about the nature that surrounds them, the peaks of the Himalayas, the lotus flower, the giant trees … Give your opinion on love, men, women, and life.
Part II: We want to present history as a major Indian.
Part III: It says that creation had no beginning or end.
Part IV: We note that Brahma made a wish, and the sky was full of bright spots. He says the first smile of Brahma sprang Eden.
Part V: Brahma withdrew to his sanctuary.
Part VI: We realize that the scholars could convert the carbon diamonds.
Part VII: Talk about the four elements and their guardians (Agni, Vayu, Varuna, and Prithiun) were created by one stroke.
Part VIII: No one knew that Brahma was locked in his lab.
Part IX: Some curious children went to the laboratory.
Part X: In that place, there were pots, scrolls …
Part XI: Brahma created new planets taking liquor.
Part XII: The young man looked at his work with admiration while others did not like it as much as him.
Part XIII: The operator got tired, so he decided to leave the lab, but inadvertently left the door not closed, and some kids went in there to snoop.
Part XIV: These, in the laboratory, destroyed all the inventions that Brahma had created and decided to make the world as they had seen.
Part XV: They started mixing some liquid, but that smoke and more smoke came out.
Part XVI: Brahma returned to the laboratory to observe the world he created. It was a world deformed, dark, ugly, fragile … between this, the cause of this destruction could not stop laughing.
Part XVII: The angry young man, but seeing one of the children begging for their world, Brahma had created, softened.
Part XVIII: The boys went with their “world” that is where we live today. The last thing you said oh Brahma was not anything more delicate or more fearsome than the hand of a little boy.
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