Legends & Romances of Spain

by Lewis Spence

When her lover had gone Elisena was plunged in the deepest grief, and all the comfort which Darioleta could bestow upon her failed to rouse her from the lethargy of sorrow into which she had fallen. In her father’s kingdom, as in modern Scotland, an old law existed which provided that if two persons solemnly took each other in marriage by oath no further ceremony was necessary to render the union legal, although it was usual to have it ratified later by both Church and law. Perion and Elisena had taken these vows upon themselves, but the Princess dreaded the wrath of her father, whom the lovers had not consulted, and when a little son was born to her she was in great fear of the consequences, for she knew her father to be both proud and hasty and prone to act before he learned the truth of a matter. The worldly and quick-witted Darioleta had, however, no scruples regarding the manner in which she resolved to save her mistress and herself from the King’s wrath, and despite the protestations of Elisena, who in her weakness was unable to restrain her, she built a little ark of wood, made it water-tight with pitch, and, regardless of the tears and lamentations of her mistress, placed the new-born baby boy therein with Perion’s sword, which she had abstracted from his sleeping-chamber. Then she wrote upon a piece of parchment, “This is Amadis, son of a king,” covered the writing with wax so that it might be preserved from obliteration, and, securing it to the betrothal ring which Perion had given to Elisena, fastened it by a silken cord round the infant’s neck. Then with the utmost caution, lest any one should observe her action, she carried the tiny vessel to the river which ran at the foot of the palace garden and launched it upon the swift, deep waters.

The little ark was rapidly carried out to sea, which was not more than half a league distant, and it had scarcely emerged upon the tossing billows when it was sighted by the mariners of a Scottish vessel which bore a Caledonian knight, Gandales, back from Gaul to his home in the North. At his orders the sailors launched a boat, and having secured the tiny vessel, brought it to the ship, when the wife of Gandales, delighted with the beauty of the infant it held, decided to adopt him as her own. In a few days the vessel put into the Scottish port of Antalia,[2] and Gandales carried the little Amadis to his castle, where he brought him up with his own son, Gandalin.

Some years afterward, when Amadis was about five years old, Languines, the King of Scotland, and his Queen, ‘the Lady of the Garland,’ and sister to Elisena, paid a visit to the castle of Gandales, and were so greatly attracted by the child’s grace and beauty that they expressed a desire to adopt him as their own. Gandales acquainted them with what he knew of Amadis’s history, and the royal pair promised to regard him as their own son. Amadis, because of the circumstances of his strange discovery, was known to every one as ‘the Child of the Sea,’ and indeed this mysterious and poetic name cleaved to him until his identity had been proven beyond cavil. He showed no reluctance to accompany his new guardians, although he was grieved at having to part with his first foster-parents, but the little Gandalin would in no wise be separated from him, and begged so hard to be permitted to share his fortunes that at last King Languines took both the boys under his protection.

Perion’s Dream

Let us return to King Perion. Occupied once more with the affairs of his kingdom, he still knew great heaviness of spirit because of a dream that he had had while at the Court of Garinter. It seemed to him in his dream that some one entered his sleeping-apartment, thrust a hand through his side, and, taking out his heart, cast it into the river that flowed through King Garinter’s garden. Crying out in his anguish, he was answered by a voice that another heart was still left to him. Troubled by memory of the dream, which he could not unriddle, he called together all the wise men of his realm and requested them to attempt its solution. Only one of them could unravel the mystery, and the sage who did so assured him that the heart which had been abstracted represented a son which a noble lady had borne him, while the remaining heart symbolized another son who would in some manner be taken away against the will of her who had cast away the first.

As the King left the wise man’s presence he encountered a mysterious damsel, who saluted him and said: “Know, King Perion, that when thou recoverest thy loss the kingdom of Ireland shall lose its flower”; and ere the King could detain or question her she had gone.

In course of time King Garinter died, and Perion and Elisena were formally wedded. But when Perion asked his wife if she had borne him a son, so bitterly ashamed was she of the part she had been forced to play in the matter of the child’s disappearance that she denied everything. Later, two beautiful children were born to them, a son and a daughter, called Galaor and Melicia. When Galaor was but two and a half years old, the King and Queen, at that time sojourning at a town called Banzil, near the sea, were walking in the gardens of the palace there, when suddenly a monstrous giant rose out of the waves and, catching up the little Galaor, made off with him before anyone could prevent him.

The monster, dashing into the water, clambered on board a ship and put out to sea, crying out joyfully, as he did so: “The damsel told me true!” The parents were deeply afflicted at the loss of their son, and in her grief Elisena admitted the casting away of Amadis. Then Perion knew that what the wise man had told him regarding the loss of the two hearts was the truth indeed.

Now the giant who had stolen the little Galaor was not of the race of evil monsters, but was generous in disposition and gentle in demeanour. Indeed, he took as much care of the child as if he had been one of his own gigantic brood. He was a native of Lyonesse, was known as Gandalue, and was the master of two castles in an island of the sea. He had peopled this island with Christian folk, and gave the little Galaor into the keeping of a holy hermit, with strict orders to educate him as a brave and loyal knight. He told the hermit that a damsel—the same who had addressed King Perion so strangely, and who was a powerful sorceress—had assured him that only a son of Perion could conquer his lifelong and ruthless enemy, the giant Albadan,[3] who had slain his father, and had taken from him the rock Galtares. And so Galaor was left in the care of the hermit.