Short stories
Legends
Leyendas
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer · 1858
Synopsis
Short tales, published one by one in the Madrid press, most of which present themselves as traditions heard in some province. On the Night of the Dead, a young woman dares her cousin to go and fetch from a cursed mountain the ribbon she has lost there; in Toledo, a lover is persuaded to steal the gold bracelet of a Virgin; a lord follows a wounded stag to a spring said to be haunted; a young nobleman pursues under the moon a woman he believes he glimpses. Other tales touch on the religious supernatural.
Context
The first of these tales appeared in 1858, and many others in El Contemporáneo from 1861. They were collected only after the author's death, in the edition of his works that his friends published in 1871, together with the Rimas. Several are set in Toledo, Soria or Seville, and the author often says he has his story from an account heard on the spot. Read together under the title Rimas y leyendas, they are school reading in Spanish-speaking countries.
Who it is for
Narratives of a few pages, independent of one another, often fantastic, in a highly wrought prose.
Prizes and reception
With the Rimas, one of the most popular books in the Spanish language; the Real Academia Española published an edition of it in 2023.