and protagonist of his series of historical novels under the general
title of _Memoirs of a Man of Action_.] have drawn me of late to
the genealogical field, and I have looked into my family, which is
equivalent to compounding with tradition and even with reaction.

I have unearthed three family myths: the Goni myth, the Zornoza myth,
and the Alzate myth.

The Goni myth, vouched for by an aunt of mine who died in San Sebastian
at an age of ninety or more, established, according to her, that she was
a descendant of Don Teodosio de Goni, a Navarrese _caballero_ who
lived in the time of Witiza, and who, after killing his father and
mother at the instigation of the devil, betook himself to Mount Aralar
wearing an iron ring about his neck, and dragging a chain behind him,
thus pilloried to do penance. One day, a terrible dragon appeared before
him during a storm.

Don Teodosio lifted up his soul unto God, and thereupon the Archangel
Saint Michael revealed himself to him, in his dire extremity, and broke
his chains, in commemoration of which event Don Teodosio caused to be
erected the chapel of San Miguel in Excelsis on Mount Aralar.

There were those who endeavoured to convince my aunt that in the time of
this supposititious Don Teodosio, which was the early part of the eighth
century, surnames had not come into use in the Basque country, and even,
indeed, that there were at that time no Christians there--in short they
maintained that Don Teodosio was a solar myth; but they were not able to
convince my aunt. She had seen the chapel of San Miguel on Aralar, and
the cave in which the dragon lived, and a document wherein Charles V.
granted to Juan de Goni the privilege of renaming his house the Palace