But in the night of February 4th, A.D. 36, whilst he and his eight neophytes were sound asleep in the plain upon which Saragossa now stands, they were awaked by celestial music, and this music was the voice of angels celebrating the praises of the Virgin. Santiago prostrated himself with his face to the ground, and before him he saw the august mother of Christ, standing on a pillar of jasper, surrounded with angels, and with the same smile of ineffable sweetness which he had seen on her features when he left Jerusalem. “James, my son,” she said to him, “you must build me a church upon this very spot. Take the pillar upon which I am standing, place it, with my image upon its summit, in the midst of a sanctuary dedicated to me, and to the end of time it shall never cease to work miracles.” The apostle at once commenced the work, aided by his disciples, and the church was soon constructed. Such, according to the legend, was the origin of the cathedral and the pilgrimage of Our Lady of the Pillar (_Nuestra señora del Pilar_). The Virgin of the Pillar (_Virgo del Pilar_) was not the only one held in profound veneration by the Spaniards during the Middle Ages; every petty kingdom, every principality, every important town of the Iberian peninsula had its Madonna, its _Señora_, which attracted numerous pilgrims. Amongst them may be mentioned Our Lady of Mountserrat, in Catalonia (Fig. 295), Our Lady of France (_la Rena di Francia_), half-way between Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo, and Our Lady of the Dice (_Señora del Dado_), in the kingdom of Leon--sanctuaries which stood in the midst of mountainous ranges, and which could only be reached on foot or with mules. In a small town called El Padron--the Monument--which is but the ancient _Iria_, where Santiago, called James the Elder, taught (Fig. 296), and which was for a long time the guardian of his earthly remains, there flowed beneath the high altar of the church, which was dedicated to him, a stream of spring water, the ripple of which, like heavenly music, mingled with the prayers of the pilgrims, who were so numerous that their knees have worn holes in the stone slabs of the sanctuary. The body of the illustrious martyr, when brought from Compostella to Santiago, was laid upon a granite block which was miraculously fashioned into a tomb, and it never emerged therefrom save as a phantom either to appear in vision before kings, prelates, and other pious persons who had invoked it, or to seize a lance and combat the enemies of Christianity. Thus, the legend tells us, he was seen in 946, riding a white horse, holding in his hand a banner emblazoned with a red cross (such as the knights of Santiago wear on the left side of their mantles), and marching at the head of the Christian barons against the Moors or Saracens.