Ballads, Spanish; Legends -- Spain; Spanish literature -- History and criticism
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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