Yarfe

Yarfe is a Moorish champion whose appearance at the head of a raiding party brings a direct challenge to the Christian guard. He stages the encounter as both a military confrontation and a contest of symbols, but his eventual defeat turns his confident display into an admission of loss.

Identity and Arrival

Yarfe leads a raiding party, not the full Moorish force. He is described as an imposing champion, mounted on a large black horse, and his arrival makes the threat to the small Christian guard immediate. Doña Elvira identifies him as the Moor who has come for her friend, Hernando Pérez del Pulgar.

The Challenge

Before the forces engage, Yarfe rides forward with an Ave Maria tied to his horse’s tail. Hernando Pérez del Pulgar had left the prayer speared to the floor of a mosque; Yarfe’s use of it is a calculated insult. He rides before the Christian ranks with the prayer displayed, provoking their anger and making the confrontation a challenge to their religious as well as military resolve.

Defeat and Significance

Yarfe is brought down in the fight with Garallosco de la Vega. Though he manages to rise and stagger back toward his own ranks, he acknowledges to the men coming to meet him that he is lost and that his side has lost. His defeat reverses the force of his earlier provocation: the champion who had used a sacred object to incite his opponents ends the encounter recognizing the failure of his own side.