Becquer’s Famous Legends
Moonbeam Legend
Subject: Idealized Love
Characters
- Main: Manrique, a young noble, solitary poet, and dreamer who dreams of the beauty of women.
- Secondary: Alonso de Valdecuellos, an old King’s huntsman who lives alone and is sick.
Setting and Time
The action takes place in the Middle Ages in Soria, on the River Douro, near the Templars’ area and the Hermitage of San Saturio (in the San Juan neighborhood).
The Miserere Legend
Summary
In this legend, Becquer encounters two or three volumes of music containing a miserere. He reads some sentences he doesn’t fully understand and asks an old man to explain. The old man then recounts the legend.
Many years ago, on a dark, rainy night, a pilgrim appeared at a cloister door, claiming to be a musician. He asked for food and shelter, having nowhere else to go. The pilgrim began telling the layman and pastors a story, which he claimed was a crime he wanted to set to music as a miserere. The layman and others thought he was mad. It was Holy Thursday, and when the monks chanted in the ruins of the monastery, the pilgrim wanted to go see them, saying the music was fantastic and very good. The layman and others told him not to go, but he ignored them and went anyway. He waited and listened for a while, hearing noises but not the final chant. Finally, he heard it. The next day, he went to the abbey and explained everything, asking the layman for something to live on while he wrote the miserere. Each day, as he wrote, he heard background noise that increased until he went mad and died. The monks kept his writings after his death, and they are still preserved in the abbey’s archives.
Subject
Religion and death.
Characters
- Main: The Pilgrim, who witnessed the gruesome spectacle at the Abbey of Fitero.
- Secondary: Abbey pastors and lay people, who provided assistance.
Setting and Time
Medieval times, during the night of Holy Thursday. The story unfolds in Navarre, specifically at the famous Abbey of Fitero, in the ruins of the Monastery of Christ Clavero.
Christ of the Skull Legend
Summary
In the tournament at Zocodover, two friends competed for the hand of Doña Inés de Tordesillas. The two friends distinguished themselves above all other suitors. When it was their turn to fight, just as their swords clashed, the lights on the street where they fought went out. Unable to continue in the dark, they decided to find another location with sufficient light. They reached the street where the Christ of the Skull was illuminated. As had happened before, when their swords touched again, the lanterns lighting the Christ of the Skull went out. The two friends believed that the Christ did not want them to fight each other and decided it would be better for Inés to choose between them. They went to Inés’s home and saw her with another man. From that day on, the two friends returned to their hometown, which was Toledo.
Topic
Friendship and love. Two friends fight for love without realizing that the friendship they share is worth more than dying for a perhaps unattainable love.
Characters
- Main: Doña Inés de Tordesillas, Alonso Carrillo, and Lope de Sandoval.
- Secondary: Other suitors.
Narrator
The time is present. The story is narrated by a third-person narrator.