Legends and Popular Tales of the Basque People

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Unwin, 1890 - Basques - 274 pages
 

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Page 8 - And who is this lady ? The wandering soul of a woman bereft of faith and conscience, who, after sacrificing to her ambition the love of a wife, that of a daughter, and even her hope of eternal salvation, commits the last and greatest crime — that of...
Page 8 - If on beholding this mist some become alarmed, this is soon succeeded by gleams of hope springing up in their hearts, and they hail the beneficent lady who comes to announce to them that, although the hours of trial are at hand, she will help them to surmount them. Here comes the good lady!
Page 8 - Here comes the good lady ! is heard from every lip blessing the spirit of the chaste and heroic maiden who, sacrificing for her aged father her own happiness and affections and her very life, ended her lonely days in prayer on the rugged peaks of Morumendi. The soul of the proud, unnatural daughter comes always accompanied by black clouds presaging disaster.
Page 255 - Ron§al, although examples are unknown of this cruel mutilation ever having been affected unless by the artifice of gipsies or Jews. It was also believed that the blood of children was useful for invigorating the weak bodies of women. (Marianda Monteiro, Legends of the Basque People.) In 1892, Mr. William Smith, a grocer at Naples, while in the course of cleaning his house, took down from the valance-board an object which he handed to Mr. Rolfe, knowing he took an interest in such things. It consisted...
Page 248 - The present temple was constructed at the commencement of the sixteenth century, but from time immemorial the Virgin Mary has been venerated there under the invocation of Santa Maria de Begona. Tradition tells us that its miraculous image appeared on...
Page 256 - ... immortal. (WB Yeats, Fairy Tales and Folk-Lore.) The lakes are believed by the Basque people to be inhabited by water-fairies. They have also "peris," or such spirits as the "genii" of the Persians. According to popular tradition, it was this "hade" who fell in love with a shepherd called Luzaide, and took him to the summit of Ahunemendi, where she had her palace made of crystal. Animals, personifications of the vices or virtues, and Satan with a train of followers, witches riding on dragons...
Page 20 - Ariel," the titular genius of the Biscayans, one day stretched out his powerful arm and wrenched from its base...
Page 21 - Lithuania, or of the cypress which grows in the fissures of the stony hills of Arabia Petrea — a funereal sinister hue which saddens the spirit...
Page 8 - On the other hand, a white lovely mist is seen to rise and hover over the top of Morumendi, and this mist becomes lost in space like a soft vapour.

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