_, "My Cid," as he is called, with his matchless horse
Bavieca and his trenchant sword Tisona, towers in Spanish tale far above
Christian king and Moslem caliph, as the pink of chivalry, the pearl of
knighthood, the noblest and worthiest figure in all that stirring age.

Cid is an Arabic word, meaning "lord" or "chief." The man to whom it was
applied was a real personage, not a figment of fancy, though it is to
poetry and romance that he owes his fame, his story having been expanded
and embellished in chronicles, epic poems, and ballads until it bears
little semblance to actual history. Yet the deeds of the man himself
probably lie at the basis of all the splendid fictions of romance.

The great poem in which his exploits were first celebrated, the famous
"Poema del Cid," is thought to be the oldest, as it is one of the noblest
in the Spanish language. Written probably not later than the year 1200, it
is of about three thousand lines in length, and of such merit that its
unknown author has been designated the "Homer of Spain." As it was written
soon after the death of the Cid, it could not have deviated far from
historic truth. Chief among the prose works is the "Chronicle of the
Cid,"--_Chronica del famoso Cavallero Cid Ruy Diez_,--which, with additions
from the poem, was charmingly rendered in English by the poet Southey,
whose production is a prose poem in itself. Such are the chief sources of
our knowledge of the Cid, an active, stirring figure, full of the spirit
of mediaevalism, whose story seems to bring back to us the living features
of the age in which he flourished. A brave and daring knight, rousing the
jealousy of nobles and kings by his valiant deeds, now banished and now
recalled, now fighting against the Moslems, now with them, now for his own
hand, and in the end winning himself a realm and dying a king without the
name,--such is the man whose story we propose to tell.

This hero of romance was born about the year 1040 at Bivar, a little
village near Burgos, his father being Diego Lainez, a man of gentle birth,
his mother Teresa Rodriguez, daughter of the governor of the Asturias. He
is often called Rodrigo de Bivar, from his birthplace, but usually Rodrigo
Diaz, or Ruy Diez, as his name is given in the chronicle.

While still a boy the future prowess of the Cid was indicated. He was keen
of intellect, active of frame, and showed such wonderful dexterity in
manly exercises as to become unrivalled in the