[68] Historia de la Santa Iglesia de Santiago, vol. ii.
[69] See Nos. 55, 262, 313.
[70] See Fita, Braga, and Monaci.
[71] It appeared first in El Eco de Galicia, and then, amplified, in the Boletin de la Accademia Galliga de la Coruña, May 1906.
[72] The language of Galicia has been called Madre de la Portuguesa (“Mother of Portuguese”) by Amador de los Rios and by Pedro José Pedal. See La Poesía Gallega, by the Marquis de Figueroa, 1829.
[73] See work on Alfonso el Sabio, by the Marquis de Valmar, i. 2nd ed., 1897.
[74] The Irish poets were much given to contests of wit, usually carried on in the following way: When two of them met, one repeated the first half of a very short poem, which was a challenge to the other to repeat it. Sometimes it was a quotation from some obscure, half-forgotten old poem, sometimes an effusion composed on the spot, in which case the second poet was expected to give, extemporaneously, a second half of the same length, prosody and rhyme, and making continuous sense.... In Ireland it was believed that a true poet never failed to respond correctly.... So generally cultivated, and so universally admired was this talent for impromptu reply, that in the ecclesiastical legends some of the Irish saints are credited with as much proficiency as the best of the poets. See P. W. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, 1903.
[75] See Marquis de Figueroa, De la Poesía Gallega.
[76] Murguia gives the names of the following Gallegan poets: Abril Perez, Airas Miñez, Bernal de Boneval, Juan Ayras, Pay de Cana, and Pero Annes Marinho. The same writer, quoting Michel, says, “In 1361, Messire Jehan de Chartres and Pierre de Montferrand took three juglares with them on a pilgrimage to Santiago. Walter, an English minstrel, also visited Santiago about that time.
[77] Aldrede (quoted by Valmar) said, “Many of the words thought to have been borrowed from the Moors by Spain are really old Latin words.” See his Del origine y princípio de la lengua Castellana, vol. iii. cap. xv.