Calle del Lazo

Calle del Lazo is one of those alleys that seem to hold more legend than length. It barely runs past fifty metres, between Calle del Espejo and Calle de la Unión, in the Palacio district. Curiously, it did not always have its own name: the place name Lazo does not appear on maps until the nineteenth century, after Napoleonic works reshaped the plots. Peñasco and Cambronero recorded two versions of the name in 1889, choosing neither. The first has the air of a neighbourhood horror tale: a dreadful lizard prowled the San Ginés stream until the neighbours strung a loop across the street and caught it. The second leads to the reign of Alfonso X: the king left a golden bow as a love token at the house of one María Dalanda; she gave it to another gentleman, and that very night the bow served to identify the rival’s corpse. Neither holds up to calm scrutiny. Without a single document, the name stays where the nineteenth century left it: in legend.