© Mark Wade
| Cid's Spain © Mark Wade |
Town, 75 km from Cordoba, in the mountains of the same name. The walls and castle date back to Moorish times, with later Christian renovations. The church of San Juan Bautista dates to the 7th Century and is the oldest in Andalusia.
Latitude: 37.48. Longitude: -4.45.
Rodrigo thanked them greatly for their good faith, and took the letters and carried them to the King, and showed him all the enmity of the Counts, and especially of the cabra.htm">Count Don Garcia, who was afterwards called of Cabra.
So he gave her a letter to the King of Cordova, who received her and her husband well for the love of Rodrigo, and gave Cabra to him, that he and his people might dwell therein.
This Count was afterwards so ungrateful to the King of Cordova that he made war upon him from Cabra which the King had given him, till Rodrigo came and took it.
And the King of Granada and the Ricos-omes who were with him cared nothing for his letters, but entered boldly into the land of Seville, and advanced as far as Cabra, burning and laying waste before them.
cabra.htm">Then Count Don Garcia rose and said, Come away, Infantes, and let us leave the Cid sitting like a bridegroom in his ivory chair:...he lets his beard grow and thinks to frighten us with it!...The Campeador put up his hand to his beard, and said, What hast thou to do with my beard, Count? Thanks be to God, it is long because it hath been kept for my pleasure; never son of woman hath taken me by it; never son of Moor or of Christian hath plucked it, as I did yours in your castle of Cabra, Count, when I took your castle of Cabra, and took you by the beard; there was not a boy of the host but had his pull at it.
Then was the whole Cortes in an uproar by reason of that blow, and many swords were drawn, and on one side the cry was Cabra and Granon, and on the other side it was Valencia and Bivar; but the strife was in such sort that the Counts in short time voided the Palace.
His is a praiseworthy beard, and an honourable one, and one that is greatly feared, and that never hath been dishonoured, nor overcome! and if you please you may remember when he fought against you in Cabra, hundred to hundred, he threw you from your horse, and took thee by the beard, and made thee and thy knights prisoners, and carried thee prisoner away across a pack-saddle; and his knights pulled thy beard for thee, and I who stand here had a good handful of it: how then shall a beard that hath been pulled speak against one that hath always been honourable! If you deny this, I will fight upon this quarrel before the King our Lord.