Windmills

=Don Quixote's Windmills=

Tilting at windmills is an idiom which means to attack imaginary enemies,or fight unwinnable or futile battles. The word “tilt”, in this context, comes from jousting. The origin of the phrase comes from the famous scene in the Spanish novel //Don Quixote.//

In the book, //Don Quixote// by Miguel Cervantes, in one of the early chapters Don Quixote sees windmills nearby and thinking they are giants up to no good, and he attacks them. Unfortunately, like you have probably inferred, he was defeated by the continuous rotating of the windmill's blades, which came around again and again, making the idea of jousting a windmill an unwinnable fight.

Miguel Cervantes wrote this scene with the actual windmills near the town of Consuegra in mind. The actual windmills are still standing today so any tourists that want to can see what Don Quixote mistook for giants. The exact windmills Don Quixote was said to fought was the ones in la Mancha, Spain. There are 12 windmills and one castle there and are waiting for the return of the next Don Quixote. The windmills even have names: Sin nombre, Clavileno, Chispas, Espartero, Rucio, Cardeno, Caballero del verde gaban, Alcancia, Ruinas, Sancho, Mambrino, and Bolero. The windmills were originally there to grind grain using the wind as the power source. They were still in use untill the 1980s.