Don Quijote’s Windmills

When you first see the windmills on the great hill of Consuegra you will remember Don Quijote.
He thought they weren’t windmills but evil giants standing haughtily in front of him; and he bravely tilted his lance and charged, the world’s champion.
They do look very strange.

Spanish windmills are nothing like the ones you see in Holland or France. They don’t look like houses or sheds: there is no more architecture to them than there is to a child’s sandcastle made with his pail. Simple cylinders of mud and stone, with a cap on. And of course the propellers or blades, without their sails now because no one makes flour with a windmill anymore.

Spaniards whitewash them, the same as they do their houses. There is usually the slightest window halfway up to the top, for light, and a few more square holes near the top. Spanish houses never liked big windows either. Along with the light the terrible heat comes in.

There are normally two floors inside. The first is used for storage. The grinding takes place on the second floor, just under the hood, where the propellers turn a huge flat stone.

The propellers are fixed to the hood, which can revolve. Hanging down at the back is a long pole. The miller pushes it to make the propellers face the wind. When the windmill was in use, the miller had to dress the propellers with canvas, as though they were the sails of a ship. The guides who show you the windmills nowadays love to fascinate with the old jargon. There were names for all the parts of the great “ship” and the millers were experts in wind and weather, like sailors.

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