These, like most popular fictions, have sprung from some scanty
groundwork of fact. During the wars between Moor and Christian which
distracted this country for centuries, towns and castles were liable
frequently and suddenly to change owners, and the inhabitants,
during sieges and assaults, were fain to bury their money and jewels
in the earth, or hide them in vaults and wells, as is often done at
the present day in the despotic and belligerent countries of the East.
At the time of the expulsion of the Moors also, many of them concealed
their most precious effects, hoping that their exile would be but
temporary, and that they would be enabled to return and retrieve their
treasures at some future day. It is certain that from time to time
hoards of gold and silver coin have been accidentally digged up, after
a lapse of centuries, from among the ruins of Moorish fortresses and
habitations; and it requires but a few facts of the kind to give birth
to a thousand fictions.
The stories thus originating have generally something of an Oriental
tinge, and are marked with that mixture of the Arabic and the Gothic
which seems to me to characterize every thing in Spain, and especially
in its southern provinces. The hidden wealth is always laid under
magic spell, and secured by charm and talisman. Sometimes it is
guarded by uncouth monsters or fiery dragons, sometimes by enchanted
Moors, who sit by it in armor, with drawn swords, but motionless as
statues, maintaining a sleepless watch for ages.
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