Toledo not only contains within its walls truculent legends, of struggles, of affronts or of spectres; an important part of the legends of the city have an essential component: the love. We have made a selection of ten legends that include a love story as the main axis of their plot.
Toledo receives many foreign tourists who take advantage of their visit to Madrid to discover its monuments, gastronomy, history… and also its legends. Let’s make this task a little easier by offering some of the legends grouped by an important theme: love:
El Pozo amargo, in Toledo
Index of Contents
1. The Bitter Well
The impossible love between a young Christian and a beautiful Jew. He knows the sad ending of one of the most famous legends of the city.
Christ Knives ceramic plate
2. The Christ of the Knives
” De capa y espada” we could call the following legend that we offer in these pages. A very well known and loved by the Toledans, which took place (or not) in the very heart of the city, during a turbulent period of confrontation between families: The Silva and the Ayala.
Lady of the eyes without brightness
3. The Lady with the Dull Eyes
” Attracted by the beauty of the lady, and the fascination she inspired, he approached her and invited her to accompany him in the dance that was beginning at that moment.”
4. Virgin of Little Pins
Times were those of discoveries and wars for men, of loneliness and tears of absence for women. Italy, Flanders and the Indies were places where a youth was covered with glory, writing history and drawing continents with the edge of their Toledan steels
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I’m sure you’re also interested in: The Alley of the Dead and the Convent of Poor Life.
5. The Cava Bath
No one knows how Count D. Julian’s daughter died. In that upheaval of an empire that sank in the Guadalete with horrible din, in that disappearance of an entire race, all the characters that, more than others, were in the way of the torrent that overflowed, were buried in its waters…
Toledo Cathedral
6. The Passion Rose
One summer afternoon, in a garden in Toledo, I was told this singular story by a very good and very pretty girl. As she explained to me the mystery of her special form, she kissed the leaves and the pistils that she pulled out, one by one, from the flower that gives this legend its name.
7. Stream of the Degollada
These were the days of the reconquest of Toledo by King Alfonso VI. All over the twisted streets of the city there were patrols of pawns and horsemen who, like policemen, watched over all the crossroads, roofs and mullions, to avoid any blow of hand or conspiracy of the defeated Muslims…
Calle del Cristo de la Calavera in Toledo
8. Christ of the Skull
Both had been born in Toledo; together they had made their first weapons, and in the same day, when their eyes met those of Doña Inés, they felt possessed of a secret and ardent love for her, love that germinated some time withdrawn and silent, but that at the end began to be discovered and to give involuntary signs of existence in their actions and speeches…
9. Abdallah’s Wedding
Alfonso V de León wished to marry his sister to the Muslim King of the city of El Tajo. Great celebrations and an important reason of state impelled this wedding, one of the most remembered in the city of Tulaytulah.
Palacio de Galiana, in Toledo
Galiana Palace, photo Felperea on Flickr.com
10.Galiana
It is said that the Infanta Mora Galiana was a beautiful young woman, with melancholic eyes, black hair and eyes and shiny as the jet and velvety complexion. It was said of her: “Galiana de Toledo / muy hermosa a maravilla / la mora más celebrada / de toda la morería””
Surely, good reader, as a connoisseur of many Toledo legends you have others as favorites as far as love evils are concerned. There are many more, this has been just a brief compilation that I hope for a good time of reading or to know better as rich city as Toledo is.
- Get to know Toledo, such a rich city.
