The biographers are unfortunately most laconic with regard to this expedition; they merely say that on arriving in Spain he was so seriously ill that a return home was imperative.

Beyond a few local legends, not very well attested, we possess no other information upon the labors of the Saint in this country, nor upon the route which he followed either in going or returning.[10] This silence is not at all surprising, and ought not to make us undervalue the importance of this mission.

The one to Egypt, which took place six years later, with a whole train of friars, and at a time when the Order was much more developed, is mentioned only in a few lines by Thomas of Celano; but for the recent discovery of the Chronicle of Brother Giordano di Giano and the copious details given by Jacques de Vitry, we should be reduced to conjectures upon that journey also.

The Spanish legends, to which allusion has just been made, cannot be altogether without foundation, any more than those which concern the journey of St.Francis through Languedoc and Piedmont; but in the actual condition of the sources it is impossible to make a choice, with any sort of authority, between the historic basis and additions to it wholly without value.
The mission in Spain doubtless took place between the Whitsunday of 1214 and that of 1215.[11] Francis, I think, had passed the previous year[12] in Italy.

Perhaps he was then going to see the Verna.