The Goñi myth, vouched for by an aunt of mine who died in San Sebastian
at an age of ninety or more, established, according to her, that she was
a descendant of Don Teodosio de Goñi, a Navarrese _caballero_ who
lived in the time of Witiza, and who, after killing his father and
mother at the instigation of the devil, betook himself to Mount Aralar
wearing an iron ring about his neck, and dragging a chain behind him,
thus pilloried to do penance. One day, a terrible dragon appeared before
him during a storm.
Don Teodosio lifted up his soul unto God, and thereupon the Archangel
Saint Michael revealed himself to him, in his dire extremity, and broke
his chains, in commemoration of which event Don Teodosio caused to be
erected the chapel of San Miguel in Excelsis on Mount Aralar.
There were those who endeavoured to convince my aunt that in the time of
this supposititious Don Teodosio, which was the early part of the eighth
century, surnames had not come into use in the Basque country, and even,
indeed, that there were at that time no Christians there--in short they
maintained that Don Teodosio was a solar myth; but they were not able to
convince my aunt. She had seen the chapel of San Miguel on Aralar, and
the cave in which the dragon lived, and a document wherein Charles V.
granted to Juan de Goñi the privilege of renaming his house the Palace
of San Miguel, as well as of adding a dragon to his coat of arms,
besides a cross in a red field, and a _broken_ chain.
The Zornoza myth was handed down through my paternal grandmother of that
name.
I remember having heard this lady say when I was a child, that her
family might be traced in a direct line to the chancellor Pero López de
Ayala, and, I know not through what lateral branches, also to St.
Francis Xavier.
My grandmother vouched for the fact that her father had sold the
documents and parchments in which these details were set forth, to a
titled personage from Madrid.
The Zornozas boast an escutcheon which is embellished with a band, a
number of wolves, and a legend whose import I do not recall.
Indeed, wolves occur in all the escutcheons of the Baroja, Alzate and
Zornoza families, in so far as I have been able to discover, and I take
them to be more or less authentic. We have wolves passant, wolves
rampant, and wolves mordant. The Goñi escutcheon also displays hearts.
If I become rich, which I do not anticipate, I shall have wolves and
hearts blazoned on the doors of my dazzling automobile, which will not
prevent me from enjoying myself hugely inside of it.
Turning to the Alzate myth, it too runs back to antiquity and the
primitive struggles of rival families of Navarre and Labourt. The
Alzates have been lords of Vera ever since the fourteenth century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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