After long and patient research I am still unable to give to the readerof these Chronicles the exact date of the times that they tell of. Wereit merely a matter of history there could be no doubts about theperiod; but where magic is concerned, to however slight an extent,there must always be some element of mystery, arising partly out ofignorance and partly from the compulsion of those oaths by which magicprotects its precincts from the tiptoe of curiosity.
Moreover, magic, even in small quantities, appears to affect time, muchas acids affect some metals, curiously changing its substance, untildates seem to melt into a mercurial form that renders them elusive evento the eye of the most watchful historian.
It is the magic appearing in Chronicles III and IV that has gravelyaffected the date, so that all I can tell the reader with certainty ofthe period is that it fell in the later years of the Golden Age inSpain.
Being convinced that his end was nearly come, and having lived long onearth (and all those years in Spain, in the golden time), the Lord ofthe Valleys of Arguento Harez, whose heights see not Valladolid, calledfor his eldest son. And so he addressed him when he was come to hischamber, dim with its strange red hangings and august with thesplendour of Spain: "O eldest son o