[28] The mysterious ceremony performed here is quite similar to the incantations used when Amadís was being brought out from under the spell of the enchanter Arcalaus by the strange and almost fairy-like damsels. Cf. Amadís de Gaula, in Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Vol. 40, p. 50, Madrid, 1880.
[29] As is so often the case with the writers of the Middle Ages, we cannot always take our poet too literally, for in this poem he says: “D’esto direi un miragre que ui” and only a few stanzas later in describing the acts of the mother he says: “A todos da capela fez sayr”. But doubtless since he was so closely related to the mother concerned he did not consider “que uí” too strong a statement especially when it fitted the meter and the rhyme.
[30] Nos. 37, 53, 81, 91, 93, 105, and 134.
[31] Nos. 223, 275, 319, 372, 393. Note that the miracles narrating cures of leprosy are all (with the exception of No. 259 not mentioned in the above note because the cure was not in response to prayer to the Virgin) in the first half of the collection, while the cures of rabies are all in the latter half.
[32] Francisco Guillén Robles, in Leyendas Moriscas, Madrid, 1885-6. Vol. 1, p. 181 ff. cites this as a legend of eastern origin.
[33] Nos. 83, 106, 158, 176, 227, 291, 301, 325, 359, 363.
[34] This motif of the appearance of the heavenly host is well developed in the second part of the Primera Crónica General in the account of the battle with Abenhut, in which Alfonso himself took part, p. 727 and also in the later work, La Gran Conquista del Ultramar, p. 321, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Vol. 44, Madrid, 1880, which belongs to the period of Alfonso’s successor.
[35] See Allan Menzie, History of Religion, New York, 1913, p. 66 ff.
[36] Nos. 43, 44, 118, 166, 167, 176, 177, 178, 232, 247, 298, 333, 352, 357, 366, 375, 376, 382, 385.
[37] Nos. 171, 172, 197, 398, etc.