Alhambra: Tall Tales from High Hills

Few places on earth affect the visitor with the forcefulness and forthrightness of Granada, that legendary city of the Moors in Southern Spain. The city offers vistas of other-worldly beauty and lost life, inviting the flights of fancy to take off. Even its very name promises the sumptuousness of a fragrant fruit—granada means pomegranate.

Each time a traveller pauses to experience Granada, it seems reborn, redefined, its existence revalidated—a phenomenon akin to the life with which the melting snows that trickle down from the surrounding mountains endow this jewel of Andalucia. Wrote Washington Irving, Granada’s adopted New-World literary son:

"I see you raise your eyes to the snowy summit of yon pile of mountains, shining like a white cloud in the blue sky. It is the Sierra Nevada, the pride and delight of Granada; the source of her cooling breezes and perpetual verdure; of her gushing fountains and perennial streams. It is this glorious pile of mountains which gives to Granada that combination of delights so rare in a southern city—the fresh vegetation and temperate airs of northern climate, with the vivifying ardor of a tropical sun, and the cloudless azure of a southern sky. It is this aerial treasury of snow, which melting in proportion to the increase of the summer heat, sends down rivulets and streams through every glen and gorge of the Alpuxarras, diffusing emerald verdure and fertility throughout a chain of happy and sequestered valleys.”

Although located in the heart of Andalucia, Granada is not typical of that carefree, boisterous and trivial region. It does not nod to the Sevillana rhythms of gaiety and merrymaking; rather, Granada vibrates with the sorrowful, plaintive cadences of the gitana dances. “You will capture the spirit of Granada,” advises a guide book, “if you watch an autumn sunset, from the secluded garden of Albayzin, where the only sound to be heard is the soft murmur of the fountain and the trill of a bird as she returns to her nest, when the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada are tinged with red, with the pink [hue] of the old towers of Alhambra, bowed down by the weight of tragic legends, silhouetted against the mountains.”

Perhaps it is because of the tragic legends filtering down from the Alhambra that the mood is ever so melancholic in Granada—agridulce—bittersweet. Or perhaps it is the pure lamentation for the loss of something so ethereal and distant as the Moors’ memories that seem to live in the ruins of those splendid surroundings.

Of all Granada’s glories, Alhambra is the crowning jewel, not only in beauty, but in wealth of living legends and incredulous tales, as recorded by Washington Irving. But one must be of “easy credulity,” as he puts it, when listening to the tales of Alhambra, so as to validate the stories that exceed the present condition of these ancient Oriental premises.

The rugged outward silhouette of this Moorish palace complex belies the delicate beauty within the stone walls, towers and gates. Looking like a spur on the back of the rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Alhambra was conceived by Muslim crusaders who had left behind the relentless sands and desolate wastelands of the Arabian Peninsula to conquer the infidel world and to search for the heavenly pleasures that their prophet Muhammed had promised to the faithful. Here in the shadows of the snowcapped rocky peaks they broke into a beautifying frenzy that resulted in the creation of a true heaven on earth.

The Muslim presence had been felt in Iberia for several centuries before the conception of its ultimate seat of government in Andalucia. The first Moorish signature on this immense royal residence was written in 1239 by Muhammad al-Ahmar, founder of the Muslim Nazarie dynasty, the sultan of Granada. He saw the Colina Roja, a thickly forested hill where an ancient ruin stood, menacingly dominating the landscape, as a potential military stronghold, and drew up foundation plans and had a dam built to redirect the fresh mountain waters to his new dream of a palace. By the following year, turrets and walls crowned the hill. Thus the Alhambra saw the light of day, until it was a fortress, impregnable, with a moat, tall walls and ten towers, water reservoirs, silos, gardens, barracks and stables, in addition to the glorious royal residencies. It is these royal residencies, with their beautiful, serene gardens, inseparably connected to create the total ambiance, that demand—and deserve—the traveller’s admiration.

The palace complex is an ever-evolving chain of courtly halls, corridors, patios, balconies and gardens, one outdoing the other in delicate yet majestic air and decoration. Such beauties as Patio de los Leones (The Lions’ Court) and Patio de los Arrayanes (The Myrtle Court) offer a worthy introduction to the hidden treasures of Alhambra.

The Myrtle Court is the pivot point for a collection of halls and salons whose Islamic architecture and embellishments stand unsurpassed in the world. Comares Salón is the most beautiful and notable room in Alhambra. Its greatest feature is the high ceiling, which adds to the hall’s breathtaking qualities as a whole. The colossal roof is entirely hand-carved in wood by Nazari carpenters and depicts the seven heavens of the Muslim Paradise. The delicate stucco carvings that cover the walls like precious tapestries, the brilliantly colored and designed tile friezes and surfaces that snake around the hall, and the shadowy alcoves that filter light softly and delicately, create the total sum of the mystique and uniqueness of this hall.

Perhaps the most famous of all of Alhambra’s courts is The Lions’ Court. Its name becomes obvious at the first glance into this patio: in the center is a large fountain bowl suspended by twelve gruff lions. This monument is rare in the Islamic world of art, since it is perhaps the only one depicting animal life form—a concept taboo in Islam—which fact has led to the speculation that the fountain was created by captive Christian artisans.

The court is surrounded by a forest-like collection of slim columns with cubic capitals surfaced with Arabic inscriptions. The columns—124 of them—support an elaborate system of profusely carved arches and lacework spandrels in stucco. The patio is flanked by beautiful chambers, all famous for their intricate, rich ornamentation in stucco, tiles, wood and gild. Perhaps the best-loved hall is Dos Hermanas (Two Sisters) with its ethereal ceiling that seems like an intricately crocheted lace doily, applied to the ceiling, through which light falls softly on the bedecked walls and alcoves.

From old drawings of Patio de los Leones it can be deducted that the court was covered with three layers of flowers, so that as the sultans passed through, they seemed to walk on a three-dimensional fragrant flower carpet.

But less fragrant is the story told of the goings-on in this patio. “There was often heard at night . . . a confused sound, resembling a murmuring of the multitude, and now and then, a faint tinkling, like the distant clank of chains. These sounds were made by the spirits of the murdered Abencerrages, who nightly haunt the scene of their suffering and invoke the vengeance of Heaven on their destroyer,” recounts Irving. More likely, the sounds were the gurgling of the underground water pipes as water was being turned off for the night, surmises Irving further.

Curiously, stories like these attest to the inescapable fact of treachery and treason that the Muslim government summoned on their subjects, and, more importantly, on their own, as well, for familial assassination was not an alien act in Alhambra. Herein lies its bittersweet beauty: the incredible delicacy of the edifice is tinged with blood and cruel commissions of unimaginable crimes.

But the story of The Lions’ Court goes on, bringing to light yet another facet of Alhambra’s apocryphal history—the speculation of hidden treasures. “There was once an invalid soldier, who had charge of the Alhambra to show it to strangers; as he was one evening, about twilight, passing through the court of Lions, he heard footsteps on the hall of the Abencerrages . . . to his surprise he beheld four Moors richly dressed, with gilded cuirasses . . . glittering with precious stones. They were walking to and fro, with solemn pace; but paused and beckoned to him. The old soldier, however, took to flight and could never afterwards be prevailed upon to enter the Alhambra.” The story-teller knew to point out that the soldier’s successor, however, left his post after just one year and went off to Malaga where he proceeded to buy “houses, set up a carriage and still lives there, one of the richest and the oldest men in that place,” all a result of his cunning foresight to listen to the phantom Moors who generously divulged to him the location of their great treasure.

Perhaps the most precious and tangible treasures that the Moors left on the slopes of the Colina Roja are the gardens, full of the Orientalist delights that seemed so important to the old sultans and their courts. The secret of Alhambra’s charm is shrouded in a twofold substance: inimitable skill to combine the delicate, fanciful Nazari architectural and decorative arts with Nature’s best features. “While the city below pants with the noontide heat, and the parched Vega trembles to the eye,” describes Washington Irving this duality of Alhambra’s fascination, “the delicate airs from the Sierra Nevada play through these lofty halls, bringing with them the sweetness of the surrounding gardens. Everything invites to that indolent repose, the bliss of southern climes, and while the half-shut eye looks out from shadowed balconies upon the glittering landscape, the ear is lulled by the rustling of groves and the murmur of running streams.”

Watching the ruins of Alhambra from an opposing hill called La Cuesta de las Lagrimas—The Hill of Tears, or the Seat of the Moor—and viewing Granada down below, with Sierra Nevada looming in the distance, and the fresh Andalucian air all about, it is easy to understand the melancholy associated with Alhambra and its affairs. It was on this spot, or so the story goes, that Boabdil, the last of the Moors who were ousted from their earthly heaven by the reconquering Christian armies, viewed his home for the last time and bade a tearful adieu to his Paradise Lost.

"I will hasten from this prospect before the sun is set,” writes Irving of his own leave from the Alhambra, aptly summarizing any observer’s deepest emotions on departure from this earthly paradise. “I will carry away a recollection of it clothed in all its beauty.”

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