5 - Advancing on ‘Álora’

Summary

Alan Deyermond and I took different views over some points in the interpretation of the ballad of ‘Álora la bien cercada’, which occupied us on a number of train journeys into London in the early 1990s, although naturally we found common ground on some other aspects of it. The relevant paragraphs in his 1996 Kate Elder lecture at Queen Mary and Westfield College, as it then was, now constitute, alas, his final major contribution to the extensive commentary which this intriguing text has attracted, although brief observations also occur in later contexts (Deyermond 2001: 68). In returning to ‘Álora’ (Smith 1965: no. 34) to honour the memory of a scholar both versatile and generous, I offer here some material drawn from late medieval Spanish texts which may assist us further in approaching the ballad insofar as it suggests how some aspects of the work's content might have had particular resonances for at least some medieval audiences during the period from 1482 until the end of the century, but also possibly at other times both earlier and later. This paper, therefore, juxtaposes two factual data sets and then draws attention to some conclusions which may be thought to suggest themselves as possibilities in the light of that juxtaposition.