[5] See Gaimar.
[6] Edwin, the brother of Morcar, was slain by some of his own followers.
THE CID.
According to the Spanish chronicles the famous Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, known by the name of the Cid, was born about the year 1026, in the city of Burgos, the capital of old Castille. His father, Diego Laynez, was descended from Layn Calvo, one of two judges by whom the country was governed after Ordono, its king, had behaved very treacherously. When we first hear of Rodrigo as a youth of gentle manners, but of great courage and bodily strength, Don Ferrando, a Christian king, who traced his descent from the other judge, was ruling over Castille.
Spain was then composed of many different kingdoms; the Moors had been steadily gaining ground ever since they first set foot in the land, more than three hundred years before, whilst the Christians had been trying as steadily to keep them back. Now they held sway over by far the larger portion of Spain; several of the great-cities, especially those in the south, were under the dominion of Moorish kings, and were filled with beautiful buildings, many of which remain, to show what wonderful skill the Arabian architects must have possessed. The Moors lived in great splendour; their palaces and courts were paved with marble, and the walls were covered with arabesques in brilliant colours, or fretwork in gold[7]; the ceilings were often of cedar wood, inlaid with silver, ivory, or mother of pearl, and the chambers were filled with the fragrance of costly spices, which were kept always burning. Then they had beautiful gardens blooming with roses and myrtles, where orange trees grew, and silvery fountains played into basins of white marble. The outside of their buildings was also richly ornamented, and sometimes with the strangest devices. The Alhambra, the finest of all the Moorish palaces, which still remains in its ancient splendour, was not built in the city of Granada until nearly two hundred years after the death of the Cid.
The Spaniards themselves were very brave, and inherited their valour from the Visigoths, who were in possession of Spain for a long time before the Moors crossed over the sea from Africa. The middle ages were not as dark for them as they were for the other nations of Europe, because their Moorish invaders taught them many useful arts and sciences, and also introduced into Spain various fruits and trees which had hitherto only grown in the East, or in Africa. Amongst these was the pomegranate, with its shining dark green leaves, its beautiful crimson blossom, and its red, juicy fruit; then there was the palm-tree, which was cultivated in the fertile soil of Valencia, until it reached the height of a hundred and fifty feet; and the strange-looking carob-tree, with leaves gloomily dark, and pods full of a sweet pulp, like manna in taste, which were given to the horses and mules.