Abstract
This article explores the use of food as an essential fictional trigger of time-bending enchantments in two Iberian exempla from frametale narratives—Don Juan Manuel's Castilian fourteenth-century El Conde Lucanor and Isaac Ibn Sahula's Hebrew thirteenth-century Mešal Haqadmonī (a possible source for Don Juan Manuel).. In both "Exenplo XI" and "The Crow's Story" a knowledgeable student seeks out a teacher adept in the magical arts. The students are hospitably greeted by their prospective teachers and either offered or promised a certain food item—roasted partridges or wine—before they descend into a subterranean space unknowingly entering an illusionary reality meant to test their moral fiber. This article compares the use of food in the two stories and illuminates the particularity of the differences connected to the cultural complex of partridges.
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