ABSTRACT
In 1928, in his now famous anthology of Spanish ballads, Flor nueva de romances viejos, Ramón Menéndez Pidal had commented concerning a romance that is very well known throughout the central regions of the Iberian Peninsula, particularly among shepherds. This chapter discusses two of Menéndez Pidal’s assertions regarding the romance, La loba parda (The Brindled She-Wolf): its supposedly rustic, pastoral character (“de pura cepa rústica … auténticamente pastoril”) and its diffusion, coincident with the regions traversed by the nomadic routes (“las dos grandes cañadas de la trashumancia, la leonesa y la segoviana”) and contiguous areas. This ballad is used to illustrate an interesting feature of the romancero, which possibly is little known to readers not familiar with Hispanic balladry: the role of shepherds and their migration routes (canadas) in the diffusion of Spanish ballads.
