ROMILLA

The people from the village of Romilla (Little Roma) are called Romans , hence "Pepe el Romano", the never seen character in La casa de Bernarda Alba. Roma, apparently, comes from an Arabic word that means "the Christian woman". The Christian woman is supposedly Florinda, the daughter of Count Julian, who is accredited with opening the doors to the Arab Invasion of the Peninsular in the year 711. In return for his assistance, Count Julian was awarded a large estate, which became known as Soto de Roma (the estate of the Christian woman) which included a large area to the east of Romilla stretching to the River Cubillas on the other side of Fuente Vaqueros, Lorca's birthplace. (According to Francisco García Lorca's book, it was a place of recreation for the consolation of Count Julian's "disgraced" daughter).

But we have come here mainly to see

the Tower of Roma, the Moorish watchtower just outside the village

The Tower of Roma

The Tower of Roma was built in Arabic times as a watchtower. As a small child, Lorca often came here with the children of Fuente Vaqueros. He wrote in an essay Mi Pueblo, written in 1916 at the age of 18, that it was said that a giant lizard lived inside the tower and it would come out at night and dig up the graves in the nearby cemetery of Romilla. It repected the male corpses but, according to the legend, it would devour the female dead. There's a reference to this in the play Así que pasen 5 años where there's a scene between a dead child and a dead cat in which the dead child expresses its fear of the giant lizard. Lorca says he was frightened to death every time he came near the place.
 
"In the Tower, Lorca wrote in his essay Mi pueblo, the locals said there lived a giant lizard which violated the graves of the cemetery of  Romilla (a stone's throw away), eating the female corpses, but "respecting" the male. Naturally, a child as sensitive as Lorca could not but dislike the idea of visiting such a place, but, in order not to appear a coward, he would agree to accompany his companions to the tower, concealing his "paralyzing fear"."
- Ian Gibson, En Granada, su Granada...
This is an extract from Así que pasen cinco años:
Por la puerta de la izquierda aparece el NIÑO muerto con el GATO. (...) El GATO es azul con dos enormes manchas rojas de sangre en el pechito blanco gris y en la cabeza. (...) 

GATA: ¿Y nos van a enterrar? ¿Cuándo? 

NIÑO: Mañana, 
en unos hoyos oscuros. 
Todos lloran. Todos callan. 
Pero se van. Yo lo vi. 
Y luego, ¿sabes? 

GATA: ¿Qué pasa? 

NIÑO: Vienen a comernos. 

GATA: ¿Quién? 

NIÑO: El lagarto y la lagarta, 
con sus hijitos pequeños, que son muchos. 

GATA: ¿Y qué nos comen? 

NIÑO: La cara 
con los dedos 
(Bajando la voz) 
y la cuca. 

GATA. (Ofendida.) Yo no tengo cuca. 

NIÑO: (Enérgico.) ¡Gata!, 
te comerán las patitas y el bigote.

 Through the door on the left the dead CHILD appears with the CAT. (...) The cat is blue with two enormous red blood stains on his white-grey chest and head. (...) 

 CAT: And they're going to bury us? When? 

CHILD: Tomorrow, 
in two dark pits. 
Everybody cries. Everyone is silent. 
But they go away. I saw it. 
And then, do you know what? 

CAT: What happens? 

CHILD: They come and eat us. 

CAT: Who? 

CHILD: Mr. and Mrs. Lizard, 
with all their little ones. 

CAT: And what parts of us do they eat? 

CHILD: Our faces 
and fingers 
(Lowering his voice) 
and our willies. 

CAT: (Offended.) I haven't got a willy. 

CHILD: (Emphatically.) Pussy! 
They'll eat your paws and your whiskers.

 
PARAPANDA

 From here, looking in the other direction, we can see the mountain Parapanda about which a popular couplet, collected by Richard Ford in the 19th Century, said "When Parapanda puts its cloth cap on, it rains, even if God does not want it to". The cloth cap is a symbol for clouds. In Lorca's early play Mariana Pineda, Lucía comments "there are clouds on Parapanda; it's going to rain even if it's against God's Will".

Parapanda

Couplet, collected by Richard Ford in the XIX Century:

Cuando Parapanda se pone la montera,
llueve aunque Dios no lo quisiera.

Lucía, in the Third Scene of Mariana Pineda:

Hay nubes en Parapanda.
Lloverá, aunque Dios no quiera.

 

Now it's time to visit Fuente Vaqueros and see the house where Lorca was born.
FUENTE VAQUEROS
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