There are places that we might call anarchic, for which no rules apply. One of these is the Fjord of Furore. A name capable of evoking by itself an extraordinary territory: the Terra Furoris, clinging to the cliff "discoscesa, sopra l'onde pendente."
Wild cleft, hidden, the sea penetrates it, curving, rumbling, almost sullen. Arrow confined in the rugged pattern of the coast. Cliffs precipitous. The village nailed to the rock face.
The hawk soars up to seek the sun. Howl the Janare, their cry becomes song, sweet melody to accompany the dances of graceful maidens under the walnut tree in the little cove. Skip the water from well to well, turn the mill wheel. Divorces the goiter from the sand to chase dreams of miraculous fishing. The abituro cradles the ragged miller's sleep, his back broken by the comings and goings, up and down the bristling path, sacks of flour on his shoulder.
Nannarella and Roberto's alcove still awaits, now in vain, the return of the two lovers. Crows, goats, long-tailed foxes spy from the rocky ridges. Wise grasses speak: they tell the story of the wolf and the lamb, of the brook lost and then found. A quiet, gentle light rises from the sea. It illuminates the pale rock, almost gilding itself. Anxiety explodes to be lost in the void,to soar in flight chasing gulls and hawks and crows and pheasants. A swarm of bats swirls at dusk in the rugged crevasse. They deliver the incipient night to the owl and the owl.
You who come from afar, hear the echo of the Cicada's song, descending down from the "country that is not there," or rather, that lives elsewhere, a thousand steps higher. A few houses, scattered among vineyards and vegetable gardens, roundabouts and hairpin bends. The ancient hamlet Casanova at the contrada del Ciuccio.
Effigy in an upright position symbolizes fecundity. Saint Lamb, malandrine, marks the contrada of the Cat. Finally, the Cicada recalls spirituality, the afterlife, the life after death.
Let Peter, the fisherman, tell you about the night of mystery, amid pestilence, floods and devastating landslides: the three patron saints disowned, expelled from churches, executed by direct execution. Iconoclastic fury: Saint Jaco hidden in the house of Umberto the sacristan, Saint Michael hurled off the cliff, The blood of Saint Elijah smashed on the sharp rocks of Portella. The tread of the fleeing, cursing devil.
Hear him the courtly narrator praising Meco del Sacco, heretical prophet of free love. Far away the city of long exile, blue the sky, the sea ploughed by a thousand sailing ships. In this enchanted corner "Here you can!" is an intriguing exhortation, not a utopia.
Here the desire for love is dream, not sin.
Raffaele Ferraioli
