Calle de la Sierpe

Between Calle de Toledo and Calle del Humilladero, in the Madrid of the Habsburgs, runs a short, crooked stretch that betrays its age. The name hides no legendary reptile: it recalls a local fountain whose spout was carved in the shape of a serpent, where the water carriers of the district came to fill their jugs. A ceramic plaque today reproduces the drawing of that old spout. Earlier it was called Calle de las Negras, after a Brazilian jeweler who in the 16th century kept several enslaved women chained and punished here. The change to the present name settled in between the mid-17th and the 18th century. In the 17th century a superstition spread that anyone living here would have mad or crippled children. The belief had a very earthly effect: the houses on la Sierpe became the cheapest around, until the fear faded without a trace.