{"id":8940,"date":"2021-08-31T09:42:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T09:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/lugar\/la-teja-fountain\/"},"modified":"2021-10-14T09:14:35","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T09:14:35","slug":"la-teja-fountain","status":"publish","type":"lugar","link":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/lugar\/la-teja-fountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuente de la Teja"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fuente de La Teja (La Teja Fountain) is a tiny spring located on the right bank of the river Cubillas, about 500 meters from Valderrubio<\/a>, where the young Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca retired to write. Much of his youthful work originated there. The river is backwatered when passing by the fountain and flows with a sweet and generous calm along the shore.<\/p>\n

Although the appearance of the spring has changed over the years and it sometimes seems neglected, it still retains the candor and aquatic tranquility that Federico exalted in his poems. “In That Paradise,” recalls Isabel Garc\u00eda Lorca<\/a>, “among the poplar groves of the discreet river<\/em>, which is the Cubillas, a tributary of the Genil, he spent hours writing.” From there comes much of his youthful poetry and most of the poems inspired by water.<\/p>\n

If Fuente de La Teja invites you to relax, La Carrura Fountain, no longer existing, was a kind of agora where women came to do the laundry and talk about the events of the village.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

La Carrura Fountain, today non-existent due to one of the changes in the course of the Cubillas, represents the other side of the springs. If that of La Teja imbues calmness, that of La Carrura was a kind of agora where the women of the neighborhood went to do the laundry and to talk about the events of the town. Lorca transferred the atmosphere of gossip and jokes he heard in La Carrura to the scene of the washerwomen in Yerma<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The walk to Fuente de la Teja was part of the Garc\u00eda Lorca brothers’ daily summer ritual in Valderrubio. The family lived in Granada at the time, but returned to the village occasionally for the agricultural work.<\/p>\n

\"Lorca<\/a>
Lorca and his siblings at the river Cubillas. \/ Photo: FGL Foundation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ceremony began at siesta time when everything came to a standstill; Federico and his three brothers would lock themselves in a large, cool room after lunch and sit on the rocking chairs. “It was like a beacon. Federico would play the guitar – the same one that today is preserved in the Huerta de San Vicente (San Vicente Farmhouse) and that I never heard played again – and we would sing; not the popular songs that he later collected; they were the cultured songs from the songbooks of the 15th and 16th centuries that he knew so well.” Later Federico, armed with paper and pencil, would go to the river to write. “What he wrote there,” recalls his sister Isabel in her memoirs, “is inseparable from the beautiful landscape that surrounded us.”<\/p>\n

They would return at dusk at the same time as the shepherds were locking up the flocks. On other afternoons their sisters would also come to bathe in the cold, clear waters of the river, “and there Federico was sitting on the floor of the small fountain”, as he reflects in one of his most quoted poems, Dream<\/em>: “My heart rests by the cold fountain \/ (Fill it with your threads, \/ Spider of oblivion)”.<\/p>\n

The allusion to the “cold fountain” has also been interpreted as a premonition of his death next to the Aynadamar Fountain or the Fountain of Tears<\/a>, in Alfacar.<\/p>\n

\"Federico<\/a>
Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca at a summer residence in La Vega de Granada. \/ Photo: FGL Foundation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the most moving texts in Suites<\/em><\/a> refers directly to Cubillas and the fountains. It is entitled Meditations and Allegories of Water<\/em> and is a lyrical description of those moments of pleasure: “Many years ago, I, modest dreamer and cheerful boy, spent every summer on the cool bank of a river. In the afternoons, when the admirable bee-eaters sing, sensing the wind, and the cicada angrily rubs its two golden blades, I sit by the lively depths of the backwater and let my own eyes fly and rest frightened on the water, or on the round tops of the poplars”.<\/p>\n

There the poet discovers the chopped wicker, the “gusts of silence” that freeze the “astonished crystal” of his eyes; the reflections of the river, the brambles and the reeds “that curl like a nun’s cloth”. Until his gaze focuses on himself, on his inner self: “A freshness invaded my whole body, wrapped in the last strands of twilight hair, and an immense luminous avenue crossed my heart. Is it possible? Does my soul make excursions to the waves instead of visiting the stars?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":8486,"template":"","inters_del_lugar":[117],"ruta":[120],"class_list":["post-8940","lugar","type-lugar","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","inters_del_lugar-important","ruta-route-of-la-vega"],"trid":"162","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lugar\/8940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lugar"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/lugar"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"inters_del_lugar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inters_del_lugar?post=8940"},{"taxonomy":"ruta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ruta?post=8940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}