Hi!
Today I want to recount you another story about masche, witches, and this time we’ll go on the road which reaches Rorà. You must know that during my walks and my chats with elders, who know every single ancient fables, I discovered that every region has a place in which is said that the witches lived… In Rorà this place is located in the Fucine (literally, smithies) hamlet, just before the entrance of the town.
The inhabitants of the two places, Rorà and Fucine, are rivals since their origin: the rorenghi call themselves ciat, “cats”, and call the people from Fucine giari, “mice”, to stress the hostility that shapes the two hamlets, enemies just like cats and mice.
And don’t you think that the name of this hamlet is funny? It’s called Fucine because once, just under this group of houses, you could find an ancient smithy. And it’s told that the old owners of this smithy were sorcerers! But not only, it seems that they were also very proud of their reputation, and that thay didn’t lose a single chance to remind it to the other people.
A night, a young man from Rorà, engaged with a girl from the other hamlet, was quietly returning home. Suddendly, his road was blocked by a huge beast grunting and mumbling; it was exactly in the middle of the street and it seemed that it didn’t want to let him pass. The young man waited for a while, then he started to hiss and cry to scary the creature, but it continued to grunt in the same place. At the end he lost his patience and resolved to lift the stick he had and hardly hit the beast. But it continued to stay there, and the the young mad had to hit it harder and harder, until he achieved to drive away the beast. The following day, everybody could see a man from Fucine going about with a bandage on his arm.
But that wasn’t all! A month later, indeed, the scene happened again in the same way, but the boy this time was less scared, because he had understood to be involved in sorcerer things. Seconds after he saw the beast, he ran towards it and hit with his stick even harder then the time before… Guess what? The following day, the man from Fucine had his head bandaged and, even if he was proud of showing to everybody he was a sorcerer, he ceased to interfere with the path of the young man who was going to see his girlfriend.
But I have to confess that for a long time the elders didn’t see with favour the engagements between people from Rorà and people from Fucine!
How to get here
leave Luserna San Giovanni and take the Strada Provinciale 162 in the direction of Rorà. Go on the main road for about 5 kilometers, and you will reach Fucine hamlet.
Do you want to read the tale in Italian ?