With these preliminary suggestions, the fruit of a morning's reading
and rumination, in the old Jesuits' Library of the University, I
will give him a legend in point, drawn forth from one of the venerable
chronicles alluded to.
Legend of Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa.
IN THE cloisters of the ancient Benedictine convent of San
Domingo, at Silos, in Castile, are the mouldering yet magnificent
monuments of the once powerful and chivalrous family of Hinojosa.
Among these reclines the marble figure of a knight, in complete armor,
with the hands pressed together, as if in prayer. On one side of his
tomb is sculptured in relief a band of Christian cavaliers,
capturing a cavalcade of male and female Moors; on the other side, the
same cavaliers are represented kneeling before an altar. The tomb,
like most of the neighboring monuments, is almost in ruins, and the
sculpture is nearly unintelligible, excepting to the keen eye of the
antiquary. The story connected with the sepulchre, however, is still
preserved in the old Spanish chronicles, and is to the following
purport:
IN old times, several hundred years ago, there was a noble Castilian
cavalier, named Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa, lord of a border castle,
which had stood the brunt of many a Moorish foray. He had seventy
horsemen as his household troops, all of the ancient Castilian
proof; stark warriors, hard riders, and men of iron; with these he
scoured the Moorish lands, and made his name terrible throughout the
borders.
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