EL MORO SANTON [106].
Just as it was permitted to the heathen soothsayer Balaam to foretelltrue things to the Lord's people, so it is narrated that, a littlebefore the taking of Granada by the Christians, great consternationwas produced among the infidel population by the predictions of aMoorish dervish who was held in great veneration.
He was an ancient man, more than a hundred years old; his long whitebeard seemed to be falling snow, it was more than a yard long, andhe could gird it round his waist. He lived out on the mountains ofGranada a life of great austerity; though it was long since he hadnever a hair left, he wore no covering on his head, and the actionof the sun and rain had worn it into the appearance of a skull; hiseyebrows grew long and bushy, and served as a protection to his eyes;and no clothing wore he but a tunic of camel's hide; his feet, too,were bare, and his skin was yellow and shrivelled by long exposure. Heslept in a cave upon the cold ground, with a stone for his pillow. Andfor all the hundred years of his life, he had never taken but onemeal a day, nor tasted aught but honey and milk, which other Moorsbrought him by orders of the king.
All looked up to him as to a saint, in all Andalusia; and whateverwords he uttered, they respected it as Al Koran, and next to thewords of Mahomet himself.
One day, when the king and many people were gathered together to hearhim, he spoke to them these words: "When you shall see joined togetherAragon and Castille, then know for certain that Granada shall be taken.
"And the king who shall take it, know that his name shall begin withF., for in his time faith [107] shall reign throughout his kingdom.
"And the queen his wife, her name will begin with Y., which may betaken to stand for ygual; for his equal she shall be, in courageand prudence.
"These two shall likewise turn Judaism out of Spain, and set up theInquisition, by which the wicked shall be sentenced to death.
"They shall acquire three kingdoms, and conquer the Indies.
"And they shall have a grandson, who shall be called Emperor ofGermany, also King of Hungary, who shall lay siege to the city ofthe Pope, and lay low the three lilies of France in the field of Pavia.
"Of the three laws now prevailing in Spain, one only shall remain,and that shall be that one which commences with the font and blessedwater, and ends with blessed oils [108].
"And thus they will make an end of the sect of Mahomet; for it had buta thousand years given it, and as more than eight hundred are past,it will soon now come to its end."
This is said to have been pronounced about fifty years before itsfulfilment, in the persons of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella ofCastille.