Children's Stories in American Literature, 1660-1860

by Henrietta Christian Wright

He returned to Spain in 1842 as ambassador, and remained four years. In the Legends of the Conquest of Spain Irving tells the story of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, as related in the old Spanish and Moorish chronicles. The pages are full of the spirit of the warfare of the middle ages. Here we see the great Arab chieftain, Taric, the one-eyed, with a handful of men cruising along the Spanish coast to spy out its strength and weakness, and finally making a bold dash inland to capture and despoil a city and return to Africa laden with plunder to report the richness of the land. "Behold!" writes Taric's chief in a letter to the Caliph, "a land that equals Syria in its soil, Arabia in its temperature, India in its flowers and spices, and Cathay in its precious stones."

And at this news the Caliph wrote back in haste that God was great, and that it was evidently his will that the infidel should perish, and bade the Moors go forward and conquer.

In these delightful chapters we follow Taric in his conquests from the taking of the rock of Calpe, henceforth called from him Gibraltar, the rock of Taric, to the final overthrow of the Christians and the establishment of the Moorish supremacy in Spain.

The whole story is a brilliant, living picture of that romantic age. The Spanish king goes to battle wearing robes of gold brocade, sandals embroidered with gold and diamonds, and a crown studded with the costliest jewels of Spain. He rides in a chariot of ivory, and a thousand cavaliers knighted by his own hand surround him, while tens of thousands of his brave soldiers follow him, guarding the sacred banners emblazoned with the cross. The Moorish vanguard, riding the famous horses of Arabia, advance to the sound of trumpet and cymbal, their gay robes and snowy turbans and their arms of burnished gold and steel glittering in the sunshine, which reflects in every direction the sacred crescent, the symbol of their faith. The surroundings are equally picturesque and romantic. The famous plain of Granada, adorned with groves and gardens and winding streams, and guarded by the famous Mountains of the Sun and Air, forms the foreground to the picture, while in the distance we see the gloomy mountain passes, the fortified rocks and castles, and the great walled cities, through which the Moors passed, always victorious and never pausing until their banners floated from every cliff and tower.

Scattered through the narrative of battles and sieges we find also many legends that abounded at that time both in the Moslem and Christian faiths, translated with such fidelity from the old chroniclers that they retain all the supernatural flavor of the original. Here we learn how Arab and Christian alike beheld portents, saw visions, received messages from the spirits, and were advised, encouraged, and comforted by signs and warnings from heaven, the whole narrative being most valuable as presenting in fine literary form the every-day life and intense religious fervor of the soldier of the middle ages.

For eight hundred years the Moors held Spain. They built beautiful cities and palaces, the remains of which are marvels to this day; they made the plain of Granada a garden of flowers; they preserved classical literature when the rest of Europe was sunk in ignorance; they studied the sciences, and had great and famous schools, which were attended by the youth of all nations; they rescued the Jewish people from the oppression of the Spaniards, and made them honorable citizens; and they impressed upon their surroundings an art so beautiful that its influence has extended throughout Christendom. Their occupation of Spain at that time probably did more for the preservation of literature, science, and art than any other event in history.

In his chapters on the Alhambra, the beauties of that celebrated palace, the favorite abode of the Moorish kings, is described by Irving as seen by him during a visit in 1829. Even at that date, nearly four hundred years after its seizure by the Spaniards, the Alhambra retained much of its original magnificence. The great courts, with their pavements of white marble, and fountains bordered with roses, the archways, balconies, and halls decorated with fretwork and filigree and incrusted with tiles of the most exquisite design; the gilded cupolas and panels of lapis lazuli, and the carved lions supporting the alabaster basins of the fountains, all appealed to Irving so strongly that when he first entered the palace it seemed, he relates, as if he had been transported into the past and was living in an enchanted realm.

Irving remained some months in the Alhambra, living over again the scenes of Moorish story, and so catching the spirit of the lost grandeur of the old palace, that his descriptions read like a bit of genuine Arabian chronicle, which had been kept safe until then in the grim guardianship of the past.

The chapters of the Alhambra are also full of delightful legends, the fairy tales which time had woven around the beautiful ruin, and which the custodians of the place related gravely to Irving as genuine history. It calls up a pleasant picture to think of Irving sitting in the stately hall or in his balcony, listening to one of these old tales from the lips of his tattered but devoted domestic, while the twilight was gathering and the nightingale singing in the groves and gardens beneath.

He himself said that it was the realization of a day-dream which he had cherished since the time when, in earliest boyhood on the banks of the Hudson, he had pored over the story of Granada.