This special episode for Halloween, El Día de los Muertos and La Noche de Difuntos is a double bill: a legend within a legend. We travel to the old city of Soria, a city with more legends than roads, and to the ruins of a monastery that once belonged to the Knights Templar. There, on the Night of the Dead, La Noche de Difuntos, in that empty ruined chapel, the bell tolls... and there's nobody there to ring it. No one alive, that is.

The episode opens in English, then turns to Spanish to tell the legend Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer wrote down in 1861: Beatriz, Alonso, and a blue ribbon lost on a haunted mountain.

Read along with the full transcript, English translation and key vocabulary at historyas.com: https://historyas.com/episodes/#book-episode-2

Soria, Noche de Difuntos. En la capilla en ruinas de los Templarios, la campana dobla sola. Beatriz ha perdido una cinta azul en el Monte de las Ánimas, y Alonso sale a buscarla.

A note: this is a ghost story, and it is genuinely scary in places. Listen at your own discretion, especially with young kids.

Written, narrated and scored by Luis Poza Garcia.

The full is episode is out now...

Summary

Valencia, 1099. The gates open and El Cid rides out to battle, three days dead. That's the legend. But what really happened?

Description

Valencia, 1099. El Cid is dead. Three days later, the gates of the city open, and there he is, mounted on his horse Babieca, banner raised, eyes open, riding out to face the enemy one last time.

The episode opens in English, then turns to Spanish to tell the legend Hollywood made famous in 1961, and to go looking in history for what really happened.

Read along with the full transcript, English translation and key vocabulary at historyas.com: https://historyas.com/episodes/#book-episode-1

Valencia, 1099. El Cid ha muerto. Tres días después, las puertas de la ciudad se abren y ahí está, a lomos de Babieca, con su estandarte en alto y los ojos abiertos. Esa es la leyenda. ¿Qué pasó de verdad?

Written, narrated and scored by Luis Poza Garcia.

El Cid was dead. We all saw him die. Three days later, the gates of Valencia open, and he rides out again.

This is the Spanish-language trailer for HISTORYAS, a new bilingual podcast telling the strangest, most unforgettable stories from Spanish history, half in English, half in Spanish, made for English speakers who want to learn Spanish through storytelling (and for native speakers who just love a good story).

Episode 1, the full story of El Cid and the impossible choice his wife Jimena had to make, is coming October 23. Subscribe now so you don't miss it.