© Mark Wade
| Map of Burgos Area © Mark Wade |
The location of the oak-wood of Corpes has been the subject of endless scholarly controversy. Local tradition (and a road marker) place it at El Paramo, near Castillejo de Robledo.
They went on by Valdespino, and by Parra, and Berrocal, and Val de Endrinas, and they left Medina Celi on the right, and crost the plain of Barahona, and past near Berlanga; and they crost the Douro by a ford below the town, and rode on and came into the Oak-wood of Corpes.
And the Infantes, when they saw them coming and heard their demand, were greatly afraid, and they said, Go to the fountain in the Oak-forest of Corpes, and there ye may find them; we left them safe and sound, and no harm have we done unto them; but we would not take them with us.
Pero Sanchez and those other knights rode back to the green lawn in the Oak-forest, where they had left the dames; and when they came to the fountain they saw that there was blood round about, but the dames were not there; and they were greatly troubled, and knew not where to seek them.
They went up Val de Esgueva to Penafiel, and by Roa and Arrueco, and they entered the Oak-forest of Corpes, and Pero Sanchez showed the place beside the fountain where the villainy had been committed; and they made such lamentation there as if they had seen the dames lie dead before them.
When they left my daughters in the Oak-forest of Corpes they chose to have nothing to do with me, and renounced my love; let them therefore give me back the swords, seeing that they are no longer my sons-in-law.
Full hard it is for me to make it, though I have it rooted in my heart! I say then, let them make answer before you, and tell why it was that they besought you to marry them with my daughters, and why they took them away from me from Valencia, when they had it in heart to dishonour me, and to strike them, and leave them as they were left, in the Oak-forest of Corpes? Look, Sir, what dishonour they did them! they stript them of the garments which they had not given them, as if they had been bad women, and the children of a bad father.
With less than mortal defiance I shall not let them go!...How had I deserved this, Infantes, at your hands? I gave you my daughters to take with you from Valencia; with great honour and great treasures gave I them unto you;...Dogs and Traitors,...ye took them from Valencia when ye did not love them, and with your bridles ye smote and with your spurs ye spurned and wounded them, and ye left them alone in the Oak-forest, to the wild beasts, and to the birds of the mountain! King Don Alfonso, they neither remembered God, nor you, nor me, nor their own good fortune! And here was fulfilled the saying of the wise man, that harder it is for those who have no understanding to bear with good than with evil.
And he turned towards the Infantes of Carrion, and said, Ferrando Gonzalez and Diego Gonzalez, I say that ye are false traitors for leaving your wives as ye left them in the Oak-forest; and here before the King I attaint you as false traitors, and defy you, and will produce your peers who shall prove it upon you, and slay you or thrust you out of the lists, or make you confess it in your throats.