The legend of Gargoris and Habis

Once upon a time, about three thousand years ago, a King called Gargoris lived in the forests of Tartessos. He discovered the art of collecting honey.

The king had a daughter who fell in love with a young man from a rival village. The princess became pregnant and once she had plucked up enough courage she told her father the news.

Gargoris ordered his daughter to be locked away in a faraway tower until the baby was born. As soon as it was born a rough strongman siezed the baby and took it to the king.

King Gargoris wanted to get rid of the baby and ordered it to be left out on the hillside to be eaten by the wild animals. A few days later he ordered a servant to go and make sure that the baby had been killed but he found out that the wild animals had fed the baby and kept it safe and sound. So the baby was brought back to the palace.

The king ordered the baby to be left on a narrow path used by cows and oxen so that it would be trampled to death. Yet the animals walked round it, carefully not treading on it. The gods were protecting the baby.

The king refused to give up and ordered that the baby be fed to the hungry dogs and pigs so it would be eaten alive. However the animals wouldn’t touch the baby because the gods were protecting it.

Finally they threw the baby into the sea to drown, but the waves washed it up on a faraway beach.

There, a deer found it, fed it with her milk and brought it up.

The little boy grew up to be strong and agile in the mountains.

… but no-one had taught him not to take other people’s things and one day he went into some peasants’ huts and took whatever he wanted. One day, the peasants got fed up and set a trap. They captured him and took him before the King.

The king saw something in the child which reminded him of when he himself was young. When the boy took his clothes off the King recognised the royal signs they had used to mark him, when he was a baby, and realised it was his grandchild.

The king was sorry for everything he had done to the child. He called him Habis, which means “he who was lost” and named him heir to the throne and to his kingdom.

The End Primary Third Cycle. CEIP Giner de los Ríos School Huelva ANDALUSIA (SPAIN)