CADÍ'S
TREASURE
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The story goes that many centuries ago, during the time when the Moors had settled in North Catalonia, there was a Moorish Cadi who was extremely rich. But because he lived as if he were the lord of the region, and the Catalans who lived in that land did not like having a Moorish leader, they sent a message to the nobles in the neighbouring regions, asking them to help them free themselves of the Cadi. |
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On receiving the message,
the neighbouring nobles organised a huge army and went to battle against
the Cadi's troops. .The fight was intense and lasted many days. Sometimes
it seemed the Catalans were winning and other times the Moors, but there
was no clear victory for either side. |
Until one day the
Catalan troops started to win over the Moors, and everyone realised that
the Catalan army would be victorious. On seeing this, the Cadi said to himself: "My troops are about to be defeated. I would do best to flee and save my treasure so it doesn't fall into Christian hands". |
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No sooner said than done!As he had lots of chests full of jewels and coins and they were very heavy, he had to make a mule train led by his most faithful servants. They left the Moorish castle in the middle of the night, making sure nobody saw them. But it turned out that they were unable to take any path, because the Christian troops were watching them all and would have captured them. |
They could only escape one way and that was to flee to the right. Following this path to the right, they reached the foot of a large, very steep mountain range, which was the final obstacle to their flight. "If we can cross this mountain range we can consider ourselves safe" said the Cadi. And they started to climb the slopes of the mountain range. But the higher they got, the more difficult the path became. |
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Until they got to the point when the people could hardly pass, and there was no way the mules could carry on. "What shall we do, Cadi?" his servants asked him. "The mules cannot carry on and the Christians are coming behind us". Indeed, far away, on the plain, they could see the Catalan troops who had realised the Moorish leader was fleeing and were chasing him. |
The Moorish leader had to choose between leaving his treasure behind and getting caught by the Catalans. He did not need to think too hard. "Unload the treasure and bury it well. Let the mules go free over the mountain range. That way we'll trick the Christians. We will continue our flight alone and after a few days when the Christians have left here, we'll come back for the treasure". |
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And that is what they
did. They hid the chests under the rocks, they set the mules free and when
they had finished, they climbed the mountain and managed to get away. |
The Christians wasted
time following the empty mules. When they realised they had been tricked,
who knows where the Moors had got to!They looked for them for days, but
they could not find so much as a trace of them. Finally, tired of looking
in vain, they all went home. If nothing else, they had freed the region
of the Moorish leader. |
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It was then that the Cadi and his servants, who had been hiding in a very dense forest there was on the other side of the mountain range, returned to look for their hidden treasure. But, would you believe that nobody was able to remember exactly where they had buried it, as everywhere on the mountain looked liked everywhere else!They covered the mountains from top to bottom for many days, but they were unable to find a single piece of gold. There was nothing more they could do. The mountain range had kept the treasure for itself and the Moors had to leave with their hands empty. |
And ever since then,
the mountain range has been called the Cadi Mountain Range (in Catalan:
Serra del Cadí). And the story goes that it still has a fabulous
treasure that nobody has ever been able to find hidden among its rocks.
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