We go back to the time of the Reconquest to remind one of the legends of Granada which is more known. It belongs to the series of stories of the Alhambra and relates to the legend of “The three princesses” that we’d pick up from a previous article.
By that then, the Kings and noble Spanish abandoned the city Nazari before a devastating wave of earthquakes. Silence flooded the Alhambra, even the magnificent Tower of las Infantas. It is said that the Princess Zorahaida, who died many years ago, wandered crying for her bad fortune.And it was her who claimed to be heard by the notes of her lute.
Years passed until the Kings of Spain – Felipe V and Isabel – returned and the city regained its splendor. Among the Royal retinue highlighted Ruiz de Alarcón, a young man from prominent family. One morning, he was training one of the real hawks, when the animal entered in the famous Tower. The young man began to knock on the door without answer. However, he managed to see through the whole Moorish salon. He thought that it was his imagination, he continued to look and he saw the face of a young teenager.
Ruiz de Alarcón courteously greed the local. He tried to convince her to open the door, fearing the repremands of the Queen if he didn´t return with the hawk. Although his aunt Fredegunda had forbidd him to talk with strangers, Jacinta felt sadness and revieled her feelings. Since that time, the young man was captivated from the guardian of the tower. Before he vanished from the garden, he kissed her hand and asked from her the rose she was wearing to her hair, as a souvenir.
One day, Felipe V and his entourage headed to another city. The young woman, felt sad and distraught and she expressed her love for Ruiz de Alarcón and her aunt closed all the gates of the tower. One night, crying at the Moorish fountain, Jacinta saw the waters leave the figure of the Princess Zorahaida. Feeling exactly the same with their suffering, Jacinta helped to break their spell. He baptized it with the water of the fountain in the Christian faith and the Princess disappeared between drops of dew leaving the silver lute to Jacinta. Since then, their melodies touched the most ruthless heart. That was how, with the help of her aunt, it was required in a multitude of courts of all Spain. By this way, reaches the rooms of Felip V himself, driven mad by a disease, thinking of Isabel that those notes would end his madness.
He was not wrong. Jacinta played with such emotion that the monarch was miraculously cured. That was the time, when the young man exhausted and feared to fail and she was rescued by her beloved, Ruiz de Alarcón. Both got married and were happy. As for the magic lute, they have legends of the Alhambra that was stolen and later melted, even though its strings gave life to an old violin in Cremona (Italy) and give glory to master virtuoso Paganini.