The Greeks had placed their multitudinous and lazy “empire” of Gods on the inaccessible mount Olympus.
Zeus alone was generally active and dynamic, especially when it came to lifting petticoats. A “decisive” character since birth, he used to strangle serpents while still in his crib. And his wet nurse had to be a kind of Sophia Loren to the third degree; if it was true that the voracious child stopped suckling in order to admire his nurse as a whole, then he managed to fill half the skies in no time!

Having grown up with the stuff of a leader, the great Zeus could not bear flies around his nose. When someone, mortal or not, would dare to raise their head, they were fatally subjected to his anger. Seeing as the white “lupara” (shotgun) still did not exist, he would turn to the good help of his brothers, they also being no saints. Poseidon used to settle his brother’s disputes at sea using his trident. For disputes on land, Zeus would strike, with his own hand, the sharp bolts which an obliging Ephesto made for him, while waiting for the more effective missiles to come along. For marital arguments and jealousies, Zeus used blander remedies, transforming his concubines into trees or fresh water springs, or even constellations.
Not having any better alternative, the Romans reduced the height and number of this population of deities, modestly placing their Olympus on the Palatine hill; their step measured to fit their leg!
The Hebrews estimated their Paradise on Earth to be on a plateau and they made Noah’s Ark shore up on Mount Ararat.
The Christians transferred their Paradise to the heights of heaven. It goes without saying that for the pagans, at first, and the Christians, later, Averno, or Kingdom of the dead, or Hell could only be underground.
Dante himself, when deciding to undertake the longest tourist sightseeing route in history, had to begin it “downhill”…

The Nordic Druids used to celebrate myths and rites in the great forests of sacred oaks; cutting mistletoe from the oldest trees with golden sickles. The Australian Aborigines still worship the spirits of their ancestors in the shade and caves of Ayers Rock, the massive, squat, red, sandstone monolith in the central desert.

In a Californian park one can admire the “General Sherman”, a giant 83 metre sequoia, whose trunk’s circumference, at its base, is around 31 metres; on the slopes of our mount Cecita one can see “the most beautiful pine tree in Italy” rise above the rest, elegant and alone and with its own plaque.
Von Platen, translated by Carducci, supports the treasure of Alarico, buried in the Busentino area; some decades ago archaeological digs to find it were begun without success.

In his “Racconti di Aspromonte” (Stories from Aspromonte), Francesco Perri refers to Pietracappa, a flat rock at the top of mount Benestare, which allegedly resounds at night with lugubrious laments emitted by Malco, who hit Christ and was condemned to repeat the same insane gesture against the rock for all of Eternity. If so, by now he will have become used to it! Other of our homeland writers tell of great treasures buried on the Reventino, a mountain north of Nicastro.
Also our mount S. Andrea hid other treasures, according to the tales of my grandparents…and, according to them, there were no isolated, tall trees on our mountains that had not been a mute witness to furtive, nocturnal burials of bandits’ treasures…

The retrieval of these treasures was overly arduous, subject to tenebrous hours, to solitary action, and often tied to awful, satanic rites. Any reference to place, were ever more vague without the knowledge of high levels of trigonometry: so many steps here or there along the vector which joined one rock tip with a shadow of a diabolical gnome, cast by the marking tree at precisely midnight of a full moon which coincided with an equinox!
If one happened to meet a live soul during the journey then it would be necessary to retrace one’s steps back home because the chance had been missed and it was necessary to await the next astral coincidence… If all went well there was the danger of encountering the remains of he who buried the treasure, buried by the owner of the treasure in order to avoid him or his ghost being tempted.
If one was caught by dawn, yet again the whole thing was invalidated and one would only find a large pile of leaves, as Manzoni put it!…
…And who knows of which treasures I myself have been deprived of when, forty years ago, one night a century old bay-oak was nearly dug up in my reserve near the Tocca’s house!…

On another occasion, in a “runcatina” near Castanìa, fire devoured the “arburu a schiocca” the area’s giant tree whose trunk was empty and full of debris. Everyone cried: “Who knows how much gold burnt in there!” , one of our proverbs goes “A troja magra, ‘agghianda si ‘nsonna”.
At the tip of the nearby Camillari Tower, there is the “Piano delle Fate” (the fairies’ plain); it would be interesting to carry out an investigation on the history of the plain’s name as it clearly has its roots in legend.

To the south of Strano, before pyromania became fashionable, there used to be on old oak wood in the solitary Ginestra reserve about which there was a legend with sure Carolingian roots: there used to be a hen with golden chicks, one could often hear them but rarely see them! The most shady legend relates to a strange sandstone rock, a similar shape to Rio de Janeiro’s Sugar loaf mountain, and situated above the left bank of the Amusa river, behind Cucùzzari.
On the cliff side it is eroded in different places, some parts curiously overlapping. The old people of my area swear that these patches were the footsteps of Beelzebub, who climbed there to bury treasures after having opportunely sliced it, emptied it and furnished it with a water resistant escape passage!
…With the intelligence of adulthood, I think I have understood a few things: even in hell there must be untrustworthy people, if the devil had to come to us in order to bury his treasure; that today’s iconography of the devil as a huge goat is wrong, he must look like some kind of big footed Bud Spencer; that he prefers a sixth level alpine scaling grade, if he preferred the cliff on the oriental side of the rock which is accessible also to common mortals. A living hunter once told me that he had climbed all the way up there and that he had truly seen the shadow of a trap door in the rock with a ring in its middle, but it could, on the other hand, be some kind of trigonometric symbol.
As far as the recovery of the treasure is concerned, it is best not to even think of it! Climbing up there at midnight; sacrificing “on the spot” an innocent animal; “communicating” with a horned goat; along with the right astral positions and in solitude…according to the recipe… Our banks become useless by paragon, and one can forget using thermal lances or being afraid of security forces, “paura guarda vigna, no’ sipala!”…

Finally, last year I learnt that the same legend existed in another locality; maybe it is an omnipresent legend: evidently the devil is a thrifty saver and believes in storing his treasures in more than one place…Above Orsini, on a hill called Caporale: not a very high place, around 600 metres; easily accessible without athletic training or diabolical arts.
The trigonometric spot in this case coincided with the light cast by the saintly candles of the church of Campoli, lighted for certain novenas.
This time the safe treasures were about to be taken when a donkey happened to interfere: they must really understand each other among black beasts!…

An old lady who lived in the area had decided to try her luck, according to professor Ierace.
She wrapped herself up and armed herself appropriately and began to quietly make her way to the spot.
Suddenly among small bumps and sounds, a black shadow cast itself across her path amidst a loud sound of pounding hooves: the watchdog demon if not the devil in person, ready to stop the intruder!
But before the scream broke forth unstoppably, a human voice broke the enchantment:
“Cummari Caia, ca vui a chist’ura? Chi succcdju?” (what are you doing here? At this late hour?)
“Ah cumpari Semproniu, mi facistuvu m’u patu ‘u schiantu… on’aju uràriu scumpidu… e crìju ca mi nda votu”…

And having recaptured his four legged friend, who had escaped his stall to go and eat grass or for thirst of freedom, the compare returned to Ursini. The old lady, having broken her solitary clause, had also to return home postponing the dark rites to another time.

Roles and rites which every now and then are remembered and retried!…

Myths and legends by our homeland
by Vincenzo Franco
Corriere di Caulonia - June 1988