Country people were generally the actors in these games, but when they were celebrated in honour of some very important and propitious event, pages and squires also frequently took part in them. In proof of this we mention the fact that Alvar, the page of Rodrigo Diaz, entered the circus on the day that Guillen was knighted.
The foolish page had, during the day, raised his elbow with marvellous frequency, and was in a humour to fight with something or other—with pigs or rustics, if he could not find a bull as fierce as the one he attacked when returning, a few days before, with the army of his master to Burgos. Thus it happened that, despite the advice of his friends, and especially that of Fernan, who had retired to sleep off his debauch, he insisted on having his eyes bandaged in order to sally forth to the conquest of the pig.
"By the soul of Beelzebub, Alvar," said Fernan to him, when he found that it was impossible to dissuade him from his intention, "you are the greatest fool that eats bread in Castile. You are as full of wine as a grape, and you imagine you will be able to hit the pig."
"May I never drink another drop of it if I don't win as fine a pig as that of St Antony!" answered Alvar, stretching out his neck so that his eyes might be bound.
"The cudgellings you get from me are not enough, I suppose, and you must needs go off to get more from the rustics?"
"Your preachings are all in vain, brother," replied Alvar. "May I be turned into a pig myself if I leave the circus without one!"
Fernan did not persevere any longer with his counsels. Alvar went into the circus, blindfolded and armed with a stout stick, which he had to use to keep himself on his feet, such was the state of drunkenness in which he was.
The pig which just then happened to be in the circus, finding itself harassed at the opposite side, ran towards the side where Alvar was standing, and rushed violently between his legs.
The animal, finding this obstacle in its path, gave a loud grunt; its pursuers heard it, and made their way, with raised sticks, to the place where they thought the pig was. Alvar was struggling to raise himself, and as the country people, on coming up to him, heard the noise he was making on the ground with his hands and feet, and also his puffing and panting, they thought the pig was before them, and brought down their cudgels with such force on the unlucky page that, but for his cries, they would have made a speedy end of him.