Full text of "By-paths in Sicily"

See other formats

-PATHS
SICILY

SAPIENTIUM

GIVEN TO THE E(L~^ J@ THE COLLEGE OF

LIBRARY OF VjCo^F OX/ LIBERAL ARTS

«
3
w

BY
THE FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY

Gift of P. Josephine Hall,C.L.A.f91

STIMULI.

'Pins Book Belongs 'io

Mevmyia I i/alu^e Me.se>, -fe J, Ay T"e

BY-PATHS IN SICILY

'Roast Sheep!"

BY-PATHS IN SICILY

ELIZA PUTNAM HEATON

Scatter now some bright Praise for the island which Zeus, the Lord of
Olympus, gave to Persephone, and confirmed to her by shaking his locks,
that he would support prosperous Sicily, fairest spot of the fruitful earth,
by the wealthy excellence of cities. — First Nemean Ode of Pindar.

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

681 Fifth Avenue

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS

LIBRARY

Printed in the Vnited States of America

PREFACE

Eliza Osborn Putnam was born in Danvers,
Mass., a descendant of families long native to that
region. Her education, begun in Danvers and
Salem schools, and furthered by graduation in
Boston University, where she was an honor student
in the classic tongues, well fitted her for a writer's
career.

After her marriage and removal to New York,
Mrs. Heaton began newspaper work, in which she
swiftly gained such success as was possible at a
time when women in that profession were still few
and looked upon as experimental; serving first as
special writer and afterward as a managing editor
in newspaper and syndicate offices, until failing
health made arduous tasks impossible.

Marooned in Sicily by ill health a dozen years
ago, the author turned for occupation to the study
of peasant life, a study eagerly pursued until it
was cut short by her death. Of that work the
present volume can fairly be presented as com-
pleted.

CONTENTS

Introduction . . vii

PART I
THE OLD MAGIC

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Elflocks and Love Charms .... 3

II. Donna Pruvidenza's Lemon .... 34

III. Cola Pesce 66

IV. The Cleft Oak 96

V. The Hairy Hand 116

VI. Jesus as Destroyer 137

PART II

FAIRS AND FESTIVALS

I. Christmas 159

II. Troina Fair 178

in. St. Philip the Black 203

IV. The Miracles of Sant' Alfio . . .228

V. The Car of Mary at Randazzo . . 261

VI. "Red Pelts" at Castrogiovanni . . 281

vii

viii CONTENTS

PART III
ISLAND YESTERDAYS

PAGE
CHAPTER

I. Etna in Anger 297

II. Messina Six Months After . . . . 3*2

III. In the Sulphur Mines 327

IV. Hearth, Distaff and Loom . . . .339
V. Speed the Plow 352

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Roast Sheep" Frontispiece

f v :■- I PAOI

The Flax Worker 3

Elf Locks 16

Door Charms for Evil Eye . ... . .48

Catania Boats Have Eyes 67

Lobster Pots and Fish Traps 85

The San Pancrazio 85

The Little Oak Tree 109

The Piper 163

Going to the Fair 195

Hotel at Trolna 195

A Herdsman 195

Girls and Pigs 195

"Most Becoming" 195

The "American" Cart, and Detail Showing

Lincoln 248

A Straw Hut 263

Tying the Boys in Place, and Detail of the

Car 272

"White Wings" 292

Gossips at Castro giovanni 292

A Pig Pillow 292

The Laundry 292

Driven by the Lava 3°5

Fruit Trees for Fuel 3°5

Ruined by Etna 3°5

x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

How the Lava Advances 3IQ

A Useless Vigil 3IQ

Queen Elena's Village 3l8

"Kitchenette," American Village . . . 318

Miners at Villarossa 329

"Carusi" 337

Child Labor 337

The Little Sulphur Miners 337

Gna Tidda's Loom 34*

A Sicilian Kitchen 345

Plowman Homeward Bound 353

Threshing 355

The "American Houses" 358

More Houses of Returned Emigrants . .358
Pictures Made for "Babbo in America" . . 363

INTRODUCTION

The author of this book was able to act in
Messina after the earthquake as an occasional in-
terpreter between Italian officers from the North
and the local peasants. This odd situation may
illustrate the difficulties that dialects threw in the
way of her study of Sicilian customs and her suc-
cess in mastering them. But the gift of tongues
was not the only qualification for the task by which
intimate acquaintance with the chosen field enabled
her to profit. Of the 700 local dialects of Italy,
those used in Sicily have a family resemblance.
All draw more largely than those of North Italy
upon Greek, Saracen and Spanish sources. Such
skill in comparative philology as the author pos-
sessed, from Sanscrit down to the modern Latin
languages, was a key to them all. A better key
to confidences and frank speech was her neighborly
sympathy. Probably there were few regions in
Sicily where she did not gain true friends among the
unlettered, as well as among savants and anti-
quarians.

Beginning her work with no plan beyond solacing

xii INTRODUCTION

an invalid's leisure by the production of a book of
tourist observations, Mrs. Heaton delved into the
mass of material presented by the survival of old
beliefs upon a soil largely pagan; by picturesque
custom and poetic observance ; by peasant steadfast-
ness through centuries and the recent swift effect
of new-world migration, until her projects widened
to embrace several volumes. To these a capstone
should have been set by describing the debt of the
United States to the industry of the Sicilians, and
the benefit Sicily in turn derives from the home-
coming emigrant. Her study of island thought and
work as affected by the "Americani" might have
helped to make the industrious children of the sun
better understood in the country which is enriched
by their labors.

For this task much material was gathered and
many hundred photographs taken of intimate
Sicilian life. This remains material only. The
author's projected study of the reaction of the old
world to the new, through sea migrations more vast
and more fruitful of change than were the Crusades,
was interrupted by the war. She was one of those
Americans who, protesting, were ordered home by
Secretary Bryan in the early days of the great con-
flict; her health did not permit her to offer her
services in war work, so that her observations upon
a theme so deeply affected by the past five years
would require rewriting from fresh inquiry, and
must be counted lost.

INTRODUCTION xiii

Nine chapters of this hook were completed by

the author. Those upon the August festival in
Randazzo and the fairs of Troina and Castro-
giovanni were finished from rough drafts. The
account of the sulphur mines, of the Etna eruptions
in 19 10 and of Messina after the earthquake, are
made up from letters home. Two remaining
chapters of Part III were put together from notes
and material left in unfinished form. The manner
of a work thus gathered varies, from the fanciful
treatment of "Donna Pruvidenza's Lemon" and
"Jesus the Destroyer" to the more soberly descrip-
tive later pages. Nor can a volume so compiled
be wholly free from errors, which an author's re-
vision would have corrected.

A very small part of the rhymes, invocations,
charms and " 'razioni" noted down by Mrs. Heaton
in all manner of difficult circumstances, and at much
cost of labor and discomfort, are printed in foot-
notes. These passages, with examples of familiar
speech in the text, will furnish material for com-
parison with literary Italian to those acquainted
with the most beautiful of all languages.

The Sicilian dialects do not differ so competely
as to bar speech between provinces, as sometimes
happens in the mainland. The doubling of initial
consonants and the substitution of "g" and "d"
for "1," and of "u" for "o," are the peculiarities
most striking to the visitor. Thus "beautiful
daughter" — if one could be supposed to tempt the

xii INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION xiii

Nine chapters of this hook were completed by
the author. Those upon the August festival in
Randazzo and the fairs of Troina and Castro-
giovanni were finished from rough drafts. The
account of the sulphur mines, of the Etna eruptions
in 19 10 and of Messina after the earthquake, are
made up from letters home. Two remaining
chapters of Part III were put together from notes
and material left in unfinished form. The manner
of a work thus gathered varies, from the fanciful
treatment of "Donna Pruvidenza's Lemon" and
"Jesus the Destroyer" to the more soberly descrip-
tive later pages. Nor can a volume so compiled
be wholly free from errors, which an author's re-
vision would have corrected.

The Sicilian dialects do not differ so competely
as to bar speech between provinces, as sometimes
happens in the mainland. The doubling of initial
consonants and the substitution of "g" and "d"
for "1," and of "u" for "o" are the peculiarities
most striking to the visitor. Thus "beautiful
daughter" — if one could be supposed to tempt the

xiv INTRODUCTION

evil eye by such a compliment — is "bedda figghia,"
not "bella filia." Anello (ring) is "aneddu";
castello (castle), "casteddu"; Mongibello (Etna),
"Mungibeddu." "B" is frequently softened to "v"
as in modern Greek.

Spanish influence is noted in many words; and
diminutives and nicknames are universal, applied
as freely to tourists as to natives, perhaps not al-
ways with their knowledge. For an American
matron of years and presence to be addressed as
Dear Little Missy, "Cara Signurinedda," is a com-
pliment of friendship.

Naturally, Greek words appear, as in "cona"
(icon), a sacred picture or statue; and there are
places, like the ever memorable Plain of the Greeks
of Garibaldi's heroes, where more than a little
Greek is still spoken. Words of Arab or Saracen
origin are common in place names, in the names
of winds, of tools, of articles of ancient and com-
mon barter.

Nearly all the illustrations of the book are from
photographs taken by the author, or from those
made under her direction by Francesco Galifi, of
Taormina. On her behalf it is proper to offer
thanks to many who furthered her work by aid or
encouraged it by interest; to the memory of the
learned Dr. Pitre; to the Advocate Lo Vetere and
the Deputies Colaianni and De Felice; to Mrs.
George H. Camehl, of Buffalo; the American-born
Signora Baldasseroni, of Rome; the British-born

INTRODUCTION xv

Signora Caico, of Monte d'Oro, and Miss Hill, of
Taormina; to the courteous American Consular
representatives; to a hundred Sicilians of humble
station in life, many of them known to the editor
only by nicknames ; last and most, to the Signorina
Licciardelli ("Nina Matteucci") ; her brother,
Major Licciardelli, and their family, in Taormina
and Catania.

J. L. H.

PART I
THE OLD MAGIC

The Flax Worker

CHAPTER I
Elf-locks and Love Charms

Amusing and caressing him (the babe in the cradle) they
(the "Donne di fuora") sometimes touch his hair and mat
it into a little lock not to be tangled, which goes by the
name of woman's tress, "plica polonica." This tress is the
sign of the protection under which the baby has been taken,
and constitutes its good fortune, as well as that of its
family. No one ever dares to cut it; certain, in case it
should be cut, of incurring the wrath of the Signore, who
would visit on the child cross-eyes, or a wry neck, or spinal
weakness. — Pitri.

It was early twilight of a bleak day at the end
of December when I first saw Vanna, the Grass-
hopper-eater. I had left Giardini while purple
clouds still scudded across the golden sky, and the
smoke of Etna flamed in the sunset. In the cold
hill shadows as I climbed the old road to Taormina
the wind from the sea bit sharply, and the first brave
clusters of almond blossoms shivered, pinkish-gray
against bare gray-brown branches.

There passed me a couple of men muffled in
shawls, their long cane poles bearing witness that
they had been beating olives from the trees; then
I was alone until at a sudden turn I came upon a
group of women knitting and gossiping as they

4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

toiled up the bare lime-rock way, so hard at the
surface, so soft and rutted where the crust has worn
through.

"A-a-a-a-ah !" twanged one of them to an ass
that snatched a hasty bite at the side of the path
and then lurched ahead, its saddle-sacks bulging
with the squeezed skins of lemons.

"A-a-a-a-ah !" The woman repeated the nasal
call. But the ass refused to quicken its pace, swing-
ing now right, now left, in the zig-zag track from
step to step across the path where countless gen-
erations of mules and asses have trodden foot-holes
and helped the rain to scoop channels.

Three hens that clung to the animal's back, their
wings flopping nervously every time it heaved up
a shoulder, so absorbed my attention that I started
when a voice said, "Good-evening, your ladyship!"

An old woman had detached herself from the
group and was waiting for me, lowering from her
head to the wall a great bundle she had been carry-
ing. "All sole alone?" she queried, looking curi-
ously at me out of faded yellow-gray eyes that yet
were the brightest I had ever seen.

In a country where shop girls still hesitate to go
to and from work unchaperoned, a woman who
walks by herself outside of her village is an object
of scrutiny.

"Are there wolves?" I responded.

The old woman grinned comprehension. "The
way is safe. Are we Christians, or are we not?"

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 5

she answered. "I have failed in my duty ! I should
have known that Vossia (Your Ladyship) under-
stands her own affairs. But," she added, "I do
not persuade myself that Vossia ought to make the
road alone at this hour."

"My daughter, I am not alone," I said; "am I
not with you?"

"Va be ! Rest then a minute, and we will make
the road together."

She was lean as a grasshopper but erect, and
her cheeks, though sunken, showed a wholesome
red. She had no visible teeth and her chin curved
up toward her nose. She was barefooted, and her
skirt, in faded checks of black and red, was pulled
up at one side under the string of her blue apron.
A yellow kerchief was tied over her head and
another in pink and white covered her shoulders.

"Softly! The way is bad," she warned me, as
presently we started forward.

"The way indeed is bad," I replied; and then
almost I lost consciousness of her presence in the
monotonous rhythm of the prayer she began to wail :

St. Nicola, send away this gale;

Sant' Andrea, beyond our pale!

I walk with Mary, I walk the way;

In the name of God and of Christ I pray

Let wind touch me not as I walk this day.

The cracked voice went on and on. When it
came at last to a stop I perceived that with Sicilian

6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

facility of rhyme she had finished her song with a
twist in my direction:

Joseph, Mary and our Lord,
Give me health along the road;
For Vossia's sake this prayer I say,
May she meet good people by the way.

"How are you called ?" I asked abruptly.

"Vanna," she answered, naming also her three
daughters-in-law.

" 'The Grasshopper-eater F " I exclaimed, a nick-
name that I had heard coming suddenly to memory.

"First the nickname, then the name!" she re-
turned, good-humoredly. "And Vossia is the
American who talks as we others talk."

"You may use my nickname, if you like," I
apologized.

"It suffices to say 'the little American/ " she re-
sponded, politely.

Thus completely introduced, we gossiped about
our families until we came to the roadside altar
that stands at the last turn in the way from which
one looks back on Giardini. Here under the carob
tree Vanna paused. Untying the mouth of her
heavy bag, she took out a tight little bunch of the
red carnations that are called "cobblers' flowers"
and set them on the ledge of the picture in a rusty
tin that once had held tunny fish in oil. Then she
signed herself, kissing her fingers to the Mother
and Child.

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 7

I had long been curious about this unbeautiful
Madonna, at once neglected and revered. Old red
paint shows behind the harsh blue of the altarino's
broken masonry. Mary's face is long-nosed and
anxious and her hands are as huge and clumsy as
the baby's legs. Neither sun nor rain can soften
the stark greens and yellows of the icon ; yet offer-
ings never fail of flowers, fading without water.

"Is she perhaps miraculous," I inquired; "this
Madonna?"

"Yes," said Vanna, with a short positive nod;
adding after a pause: "I make a novena to her for
the return of my son from America."

"She will bring him?"

"Once before when I made it he came and stayed
a year."

She retwisted the cloth that made a pad for her
head, and bent while I lifted the great sack to its
place on this "corona." As we resumed the way
she said: "One rests well here, for Vossia knows
it was here the Madonnuzza rested when she came
to Taormina fleeing the Saracens."

The Madonna is seen so frequently at Taormina
even to-day, in the visions of the old, that I asked,
without surprise, even as to the Saracens:

"And St. Joseph, did he rest here also?"

Vanna looked full at me with her quick, quiet
eyes that shone like a cat's with yellow. "No,"
she said. "The Madonnuzza sat on the wall and
gave the feeding bottle to the Bambineddu while

8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

San Giuseppe took his stick and went to find a
hiding place."

Vanna's active step became that of a bent old
man trudging uphill leaning on a staff.

"He went up past Taormina," she said, "until
he came to the grotto where is now the church "

We looked up, but the rock under the Castle of
Taormina where stands the hermitage of the
Madonna della Rocca was not in view.

"When San Giusipuzzu had found the grotto,
he hurried back to the Madonna and the Bambinu,
for the Saracens were coming, Turn! Po! Pum!
Po!'"

Here the Patriarch's feeble step was changed to
that of a tramping host as my companion continued
to stamp, "Pum! Po! Pum! Po!"

St. Joseph and the Madonna climbed as fast as
they could, but the Saracens climbed faster; so
they turned aside into a wood of lupines but the
lupines rattled their pods and made such a clatter
that the Madonna did not dare to stop, though she
was tired and the Bambineddu kept crying.

Vanna twisted her mobile old face and began to
whimper like a fretted baby; stopping to say: "So
the Madonna cursed the lupines, saying, 'May your
hearts be as bitter as my grief.' " And Vossia
knows how bitter are the lupines; one soaks them
long before eating.

"They hurried through the lupines and came to
a field of rye, but the rye refused to close behind

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 9

them. It bent as they passed and would not spring
up again, but left a track for the Saracens to see.
The Bambineddu kept crying, and the Madonna
cursed the rye. It is for this that bread made of
it is not satisfying.

"The Saracens were close behind, coming Pum!
Po! Pum! Po! So they hurried through the rye
and came to a field of wheat. The good wheat
closed well behind them and made no noise, and
the Madonna blessed it, and they rested, and the
Bambineddu went to sleep with its face in the
Madonnuzza's neck.

"By and by they went into a vineyard, and the
vines arched over them and twisted their tendrils
and made a shelter like a straw hut; and there
they stayed till it was dark, for the Madonna said:
'I can no more!* When it was night they went
up to the grotto. Thus it was, Vossia."

"Did the Madonna stay long at the grotto?" I
inquired.

"Yes; one day in a thunderstorm there came
into the grotto a little girl who was minding two
lambs, and the Madonna said to her: 'Pretty little
girl, go down to Taormina and tell the archpriest
to come up here.'

"The little girl said: 1 can't go; I must tend
my lambs.'

" Til tend them for you/ said the Madonna.

"So the little girl went. The archpriest came

io BY-PATHS IN SICILY

up to the grotto and the Madonna said to him:
'Excellency, I wish a church built here/

"The archpriest answered: 'There is too much
rock/

"But the Madonna said: 'The rock will break
away of itself/

"The archpriest called the master masons, and
the minute they went to work the rock did break
away of its own accord. They built the church
that Vossia has seen, but the grotto itself they did
not disturb. These are things of God, Vossia; no
one knows them but me."

Vanna looked at me again with her calm, shining
yellow eyes. She set the tip of her forefinger
against her forehead, repeating with deliberation:
"I tell these things of God to Vossia; there is no
one else who knows them/'

It is true that the flight into Egypt through
Taormina is known to no one but Gna Vanna;
but the legend of the plants that hid and that re-
fused to hide the Virgin is old Italian. As to the
sanctuary of the Madonna della Rocca, there are
those in Taormina who say that it was a boy, not a
girl, who entered the grotto, and that he saw a
beautiful woman spinning. Frightened, he ran
away and told the story. The people who came to
look found, indeed, no woman; but, instead, a
miraculous picture of the Mother and Child.

In the gathering dusk we met fishermen coming
down the hill to the sea for their evening's work,

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS n

and there passed us a scrap of a boy driving a little
Sardinian donkey. The child had been to mill to
get a titmulii of wheat ground, for his father had
land, he said; and almond trees so tall you could
not get the nuts without climbing a ladder. While
he boasted sociably of this phenomenon and of the
clean, shivering ass, newly clipped because it had
been "too dirty," Vanna lapsed into a silence so
unresponsive that, when the lad had bubbled
"bb-b-bb-r-rr-r" to the ass and had left us, I asked
if the great bag was tiring her.

"No," she said, shortly, straightening herself and
stepping out more smartly. Although she was old,
she could work in the fields and carry burdens with
the best of them. Of course the bag was heavy.
In it there were chick peas, cauliflowers, lemons
and chestnuts. Some of these things she had earned
picking up olives as the men beat them from the
trees, and others people had given her out of re-
spect. It was fortunate that people did respect her
and give her food, because her husband had a
heart "like the claw of a devil fish"; he was so
stingy he never gave her anything. In the bag
there was food for several days, and her grand-
children would be glad to see her coming. Of
course it was heavy, but she could carry it, because
the Madonna, St. John and the sainted souls of
the beheaded bodies helped her. It was natural that
she should be helped, because she was good. She
worked, she brought food from the country, and

12 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

she had no amusement except to stand in her door-
way.

The monologue ran along until a mysterious
"they" aroused my curiosity. The respect and help
on which she was enlarging seemed to involve
other personages than the Madonna, St. John and
the sainted souls of the beheaded bodies.

"Who are 'they?' " I interrupted.

She gave me no answer and continued to talk
of her merits and their rewards. But it was not
long before the flood of her own words swept her
to revelation. Setting down her sack, she glanced
quickly around and took off her head kerchief,
replacing it instantly as a couple of women came
in sight at the turn.

"What long hair you have!" I exclaimed. I had
had a momentary glimpse of grizzled braids, thin
as a string, wound many times round and round
her head and held in place by the knifelike blade
of a silver dagger.

"Si," she replied with finality, as if there were
something I ought to understand. And suddenly
there came to me a recollection of old men I had
seen in mountain villages among whose scant,
short locks there stood out long matted wisps of
gray hair. Such "trizzi," tangled by elfin fingers
while a baby lies in the cradle and never cut — how
would one recognize them on a woman? Were
Vanna's protectors those impish little sprites, half
fairy, half witch, the Women of the Outside?

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 13

"You have 'the tresses?'" I inquired.

"Si/1 she said, with short positiveness.

She would tell me nothing more, for we had
passed the chapel of the Madonna of the Mercies,
and already we heard the stir of the village as
we climbed the last long slope under the walls of
Taormina. Some day she would show me her hair,
she promised; but these were secret things not to
be spoken of except when we were alone.

Vanna the grasshopper-eater had just moved
into my own street, and I marked the house she
pointed out to me. But next morning when I passed
it going to the Corso the door was shut, for
Taormina was shivering at a temperature of not
more than fifteen degrees above freezing, and the
fiend was riding in the wind. It was not until
New Year's Day that, noticing hens hopping casually
across her threshold, I followed them inside.

The room in which I found myself was so dark
and smoke-grimed that in spite of the partly opened
door I did not see at first that I had stumbled on
a family gathering. Vanna's house has a window
opening, but for economy of heat its wooden shutter
was closed. Vanna and her daughter-in-law Rocca,
a red-cheeked young woman, were making macaroni,
and Vanna's greeting was more ready than cordial.

Vanna' s husband, too, was at home. He of the
claws of the devil-fish proved to be a little half-
blind old man whom I already knew as Domenico
the dwarf. With a rusty long cap pulled down

i4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

over his head, hairy sandals resting on the "conca"
where perhaps a little warmth lingered in the white
ashes, chin bent on his two hands that nursed the
top of a stick, he looked sunk in chilled misery.
Ordered to kiss my hand, he yielded dumb obedience.
Vanna set a chair, lifting from it a bundle of
clothes wet from the wash, and wiping it with her
apron while she shrilled "sciu! sciu!" to a lean
brown fowl that flew upon the bed to get at the
macaroni. A less enterprising bird was settled in
a nest of rags and brush under the fireplace.
"Do they lay well?" I asked.
"They eat and do nothing !" scolded Vanna.
"Uncle January sends us cold weather. The hens
dirty the house," she added ; "but what can one do?"
Let those criticise Vanna's housekeeping who
have themselves kept house and reared live stock
in one room. Beside the cold fireplace were heaped
brambles and roots of cactus fig for the cooking
fire. A disordered table, a long brown shelf against
the rear wall and a chest at the foot of the bed held
most of the family possessions. Behind the great
bed and in the corners stood old baskets, boxes,
water jars and tall coops made out of rush-woven
fish-traps. A hen with a broken leg and a cock
moped in these cages, and from some burrow in
the litter appeared at moments dirty white rabbits.
While Vanna railed at a peevish child that
tumbled about on the floor, I studied the walls and
their smoke-dimmed icons. The Madonna of the

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 15

Rock, the Madonna of the Chain, the Black
Madonna of Tindaro, S. Pancrazio, Sant' Alfio and
his brothers, S. Filippo the black, S. Francesco di
Paola, S. Giovanni the beheaded, the sainted souls
of the beheaded bodies

I had not finished counting the Lares and Penates
when Vanna found an interval of quiet in which
to tell me how she had set the hen's leg, which "he"
had broken with his stick. Furtively she thrust
out towards her husband her first and fourth
fingers in the sign of the horn, her gesture and the
gleam in her pale bright eyes spelling warning.

While she talked Vanna did not neglect the
macaroni. Rocca held on her knees a board carrying
a lump of dough, from which from minute to minute
she pinched off bits. Rolling these between her
hands, she passed the rolls one by one to Vanna,
who sank into each a knitting needle and re-rolled
the paste on the board to form the hole. Each
short piece as she slipped it off the needle she hung
to dry over the edge of a sieve that balanced on
the rolled-up mattress at the foot of the bed. When
enough for supper was ready she tied the rest of
the dough in a kerchief and shut it into the chest,
throwing the crumbs to the cock with a "chi-chi-
richi! cu-cu-rucu!"

This work finished, Vanna picked up the dark
mite of a child and began crooning, "ninna, nan-
na " interrupting herself to kiss the tear-
blurred face. "Pretty boy! He has fifteen months,

16 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Vossia. His grandma's wee one! Ninna, ninna,

The brown eyes shut, and after a minute Rocca
carried the baby away, his shaven head drooping
over her arm.

I was rising to follow when old Micciu, who
beyond grunting once or twice, "I am not content !"
had sat hunched in his chair seemingly oblivious
of his surroundings, struggled to his feet.

Vanna repeated the sign of the horn, forming
with her lips the words, "Zu Nuddu is going out" ;
and, in fact, "Uncle Nobody," picking up his
shoulder bags of black and white wool, scuffed to-
ward the door.

"An accident to you!" exclaimed Vanna.
"Eccu !" she said, with satisfaction, as the door
closed behind the old man.

Left alone with me, she took off her kerchief after
some urging, displaying again her fleshless head,
where the skin clung to the scalp like parchment.
Gold hoops hung in her ears, and wound in rings
like a mat around the back of her skull were griz-
zled strings of hair. Pulling out the pins, she let
down this mass, undoing with her fingers the upper
part of two braids and releasing a scanty lot of
gray old woman's hair that hung loose and ragged
to her shoulders.

Starting from this short mane and falling to
Vanna' s feet, even lying on the floor, dropped two
dark tails that, felted with dust, had more the look

Elf Locks

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 17

of strands of sheep's wool than of what they were
in fact, matted locks of her own hair.

"Eccu!" she repeated.

These tails were the "trizzi." Never cut, never
combed, treated with the respectful neglect which
is their proper care, they marked Gna Vanna as
a person living under a spell; the protegee from
birth of the mysterious "women of the outside,"
or "women of the house" — the little "ladies" who
have many names. Her fearsome pixy locks set
Vanna apart as one who, taught by witches, pos-
sessed some at least of the seven faculties of the
witch summed up in the jingle!

She can embroil the peaceful moon and sun,
Fly through the air fast as the wind doth run ;
Through closed doors she knoweth how to go,
The man most strong she maketh weak and slow;
She leadeth closest friends to fight with knives;
Her will makes husband wrangle with their wives;
She striketh men and women sore and lame,
To have no rest and suffer cruel pain.

Vanna's "Eccu!" was said with pride. She
looked over her shoulder at the tails and then smil-
ingly at me.

"What would happen," I asked, "if they were
cut?"

"I should die."

It is a number of years now since Vanna said
this to me, and I am as confident to-day as I was
then that she meant it. She believed and still be-

18 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

lieves in the sanctity of her elf-locks, while fully
realizing their value as an asset.

"But if you combed them?"

"Something would happen to me."

With much dramatic gift the weird old creature
told me how sometimes in the night she waked to
see in her room twenty-four lovely little "women
of the house," ladies and fairies.

When the "ronni" appeared the whole room
glowed with light. They wore bright, beautiful
clothing and sometimes they sang. Sometimes they
talked in tiny little voices, but mostly they were
mute. Sometimes they played games. One of
their favorite tricks was to pitch "the old man,"
whom they did not like, out of bed. Once when
"the old man" would give her nothing to eat they
showed her the key of the box where he kept
bread and wine. Sometimes they caressed her hair
and made new tresses.

Lifting her gray locks she pointed out little curls
against her neck, sacred like the tresses. But even
she was not safe from their anger. Sometimes, if
she went bare-footed, they gave her beatings be-
cause they insist on cleanliness. She pulled up her
skirts to show her white, well-kept flesh.

Oftenest of all they danced.

I looked on dazed while Vanna the grasshopper-
eater whirled around the room in a wild dance in
imitation of the ronni, her brown, wrinkled face
full of uncanny animation, yellow eyes glowing,

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 19

elf-locks swinging, her grotesque hops scaring the
hen out of the nest under the fireplace.

Not scanning details too closely, I did not doubt
the good faith of words or actions, because I have
long understood with what literal truth Pitre says
that in certain environments we cannot listen to
tales told in all honesty without remaining uncer-
tain "whether these men and these women are a
prey to continual visions, or whether we ourselves
are dreaming with our eyes open.,, Rather through
this woman so garrulous and so secretive, so simple
and so shrewd, so vindictive and yet so kindly, so
credulous and so positive, I seemed to catch glimpses
of an obscure brain-life like that of a witch of the
fifteenth century.

Up to a certain point she would believe in herself
and others would believe in her. Witches have
always carried magic in their hair, and hence the
foes of witches have cut it off. Sibilla herself was
unkempt and her hair tangled like a horse's mane.

I wondered if any trace attached to this skeleton-
thin "Grasshopper-eater" of the evil eye fear ex-
pressed in the saying:

"A grasshopper has looked on thee.'*

Ceasing her gyrations, Vanna put the cackling
hen to the door and sank out of breath on the dark
old chest, bringing the warm egg and dropping it
into my hands. While she coiled her hair once
more around the dagger, she repeated her former
self-congratulations that she could work, although

ao BY-PATHS IN SICILY

she was old, by the help of the ronni. "Because
of their favor, too, people brought her gifts, de-
siring her prayers." That very morning she had
received the unhappy cock in the fish-trap and two
rotoli of flour to make pasta for the New Year.
These things were fortunate, because she had no
one but the ronni to provide for her.

"I am an orphan," she concluded; "I have no
father, mother I have none. I have no one. I
must live. Do I speak well?"

She replied to her own query with a complacent
nod.

Knowing what sorts of prayers are in request
from reputed "wise women," I suggested: "People
ask your 'razioni against witchcraft?"

"Si," she answered. Only a few days before a
woman had sent for her whose bread had come
out of the oven full of ugly bubbles and "twisted
as if it had been struck by lightning." Even a blind
woman must have seen that this was the work of
evil eyes. She had not used oil, salt or incense,
but she had said a prayer:

Four loaves and four fishes,
Away forever with ill wishes!
God is moon and God is sun,
Harm this bread there can no one.
Christ Jesus died, Christ Jesus rose,
Out of this oven malocchio goes !

Next morning the woman baked sixteen loaves
and they came out as beautiful as bread could be.

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 21

She cut a big piece and gave it to Vanna to eat,
all hot as it was, seasoned with oil and garlic.

"These are things of God, Vossia," Vanna con-
tinued. "The priests speak against these 'razioni,
but they themselves cannot help the people. What
do priests do but say the mass and eat and sleep?
If people want help they must come to me; there-
fore they respect me. I cannot read prayers out
of a book, but I have many written in my mind.
Always for good, never for evil, are they. Loose ?
yes; bind? No! Are we Christians or are we
not? Vossia is persuaded?"

Relieving me of the tgg, she lifted the lid of
the chest as if to put it away; questioning as she
did so. "In Vossia's country hens make themselves
by machine; it is true?"

"By machine?" I repeated.

"Si ; one of my sons brought home from America
a machine for making chickens ; but the hens make
them better. He lost everything, and now he has
not pennies to go again."

Taking out of the chest two or three other eggs,
she pressed them all on me, saying: "They do not
give to eat to Vossia such eggs as these, eggs of
the house, all made to-day."

A suspicion that Vanna meant to save herself
from bare feet and beatings by enlisting me as a
respectful giver of shoes grew larger in my mind,
but fortunately I concealed it. To me, at least,

22 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Vanna has always been a friend more disinterested
than a ronna.

To cover my uncertainty I picked up a strip of
faded silk that lay on a pile of stuff in the open
chest ; it proved to be a man's necktie knitted in pink,
through which ran a line of black embroidered
lettering.

"What does it say?" demanded Vanna. I read
to her. It was in correct Italian: "I love thee,
thee always have I loved, thou wert the first."

"To wear at festas the poor thing gave it to
him!" exclaimed Vanna.

"Who is he?" I demanded, scenting a story.

Vanna took out of the chest a pair of coarse
blue socks and two or three men's kerchiefs.
These things she turned over for some time on her
knees before she brought herself to the point of
telling me that they belonged to a young man
called Peppino who had refused to marry the girl
to whom he was promised, on the ground that his
mother objected, and that the poor girl's father
was threatening to kill her. The girl's mother, who
lived not far away, had sent for Vanna the day
before, and had asked her to make a "recall" of
the youth to the girl he had abandoned.

I fingered the pink necktie with fresh interest.
"You are going to do it?" I questioned.

Vanna said she didn't know. The poor girl
cried all day long ; it broke one's heart to hear her.
She would gladly do something to bring the mother

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 23

to such a good will that she would say to her son:
"Take her." But never had she heard of such a
hard-hearted mother-in-law. And they had not
given her money enough to buy candles. To make
the recall she must light seven candles every night
for nine nights in succession, and if anything went
wrong, she must begin again at the beginning.
Every candle cost half a lira, so that she ought to
have at least nine lire.

At this point the door opened and Rocca entered
with a little girl, perhaps four years old. Glancing
at us curiously, she demanded: "What do you talk
about so long?"

"Things of God," replied Vanna, shutting the
chest and warning me with a glance of her quiet
shining eyes. "I tell Vossia things of God of which
she may think in these days of rain when she must
stay indoors."

Rocca snorted good-humoredly.

Bidden to wish me "good-evening," the child, as
I rose to go, proffered a timid "buona sera."

"Listen to her !" cried Vanna delightedly. "She
says 'buona sera!' instead of 'buna sira' like we
others. That comes of going to school !"

The brown little curly-head was made to speak
a piece:

Giovannina is my name;
I am not pretty nor too plain,
I do not know how it can be
That everybody's so good to me.

24 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"Beautiful, eh?" cried the proud grandmother,
fishing a soldo out of the big pocket that hung at
her waist. "Beautifully she speaks! Run, buy a
biscotto P

It was some days before I again saw Vanna, and
I might never have known more of the poor "zita"
at Santa Venera, if I had not chanced to pass her
door one afternoon just as she was inserting the
key. A little book that I carried caught her atten-
tion. Taking it from me as she invited me indoors,
she turned the pages with interest, putting on spec-
tacles to see the better. Finally, giving it back to
me, she asked:

"What does it say?"

The book happened to be an Italian version of
the old Sicilian Greek, Theocritus, and it opened to
the page I had been reading. I turned into the
vernacular what Andrew Lang has better phrased:
"As turns this brazen wheel, so, restless under
Aphrodite's spell, may he turn and turn about my
door ! My magic wheel, draw home to me the man
Hover

Vanna looked puzzled. She asked : "Is it a book
of prayers? There was a lame man who lived
above Giarre who had an ancient book of 'razioni.
He is dead now, but to all who went to him for
help he would read out of his book. I cannot read,
I have no book, but in my head I have many
'razioni. What more does it say, Vossia?"
I began the second idyl, but when I had reached

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 25

the words, "Wreathe the bowl with bright-red wool,
that I may knit the witchknots against my grievous
lover, who for twelve days — oh, cruel! — has never
come hither " she interrupted, exclaiming:

"It is a love prayer!"

"Yes," I admitted; "is it like the one you were
going to say for the poor deserted girl at Santa
Venera?"

"Mine is more better," she boasted.

It may have been the wish to prove that the
prayers in her head were "more better" than those
written in my book that procured me a matinee re-
hearsal of the charms she was saying nightly for
the abandoned sweetheart. For she had reached
the middle of the novena. The difficulty about
candle money had somehow been overcome.

Opening the chest, she took out Peppino's socks,
necktie and kerchiefs. "The wool must be white,"
she said, going to a sheepskin that hung from a
nail on the wall, and pulling off some flocks. Be-
fore proceeding, she fastened the door.

The "recall" could not be made, she said, except
when the moon was waxing and on a night when
the stars were bright. The first step was to light
seven candles. She nodded towards the table, where
seven spots betrayed that seven drops of melted
tallow served as candle bases. Then, taking the
wool, she carded hastily a little, using a hand con-
trivance supported on a chair. Next, spinning a
thread with the distaff, she braided a cord of three

26 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

strands, explaining that if this "lacciu"— lassoo or
noose — were made just the length of Peppino, that
would add to its virtue.

Taking the cord in her hands, she tied in it three
knots while reciting as fast as her tongue could run:

Peppino, two are they that watch thee;
Of them that bind thee, ten there be.
I bind and do not loose the knot
Till what I wish from thee I've got.
'Tis thee I bind and thee I make
Thy promised bride to wife to take.

Laying down the knotted cord, Vanna put Pep-
pino's kerchiefs on her head, piling above them the
socks and necktie. Having thus put herself into
communion with him, she rushed on:

Peppino, I look at thee,

Thou look'st at me.

All things else out of mind must sink,

Of pledged wife only must thou think.

Dropping Peppino's property beside the cord,
Vanna next took a little salt and stirred it with
the forefinger of her left hand around and around
in the palm of her right hand ; but before she could
begin the new prayer I begged her not to gabble
at such a speed.

Glib recitation of formulas was no more essen-
tial in ancient Roman sacrifice than it is to-day in
Sicilian incantations. Unless a spell is said, fast
and smoothly, without mistaking a syllable, it must

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 27

be repeated from the beginning. A trip is a bad
omen. It results that no conjuror can get through
her formula at all except at top speed.

"Softly ! Softly !" I would entreat of Vanna. "I
don't get half the words." Then she would break,
stumble, begin again and in a minute rattle faster
than before. While stirring the salt she said:

Turn salt!

Turn bread I

Turn pine cone!

Turn wood!

Turn Peppino's head.

All things else from his mind must sink,

Of his sweetheart only must he think;

For I hold true faith that come he must

His troth to keep, for this is just.

Opening the wooden shutter of the small window
and looking up, Vanna said that the next 'razioni
must be said while gazing at the moon:

Vitu, dear saint of Mountain Royal,
To you there comes your servant loyal;
I come to you to ask a grace,
As if kin we were of blood and race.
It is your dogs that you must lend ;
To hunt Pippinu you must them send.
The beast so savage that has eyes,
Like a butcher's dog "A-a-a!" that cries,
Let him seize Pippinu by the hair
E'en to his pledged wife's door to bear.

With no woman may he speak,
No man's counsel may he seek.

28 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

In thee I trust, strong is my hope

To hear dogs bark, bells ring, doors ope.

Saint Devil, concede me what I wish. I will not respect
you as Devil, if you do not concede me what I wish. I will
respect you as Devil, when you concede me what I wish.

With a face as placid as if she were knitting a
stocking Vanna concluded this invocation. Then,
dropping on her knees at the window, and surveying
the heavens as if she were choosing a star, she
declaimed:

Shining star, powerful star,

Heedless of me still you are?

Bright angel of the good light,

In three words bring him to my sight.

Well come, well go ; take him by the feet,

And he comes thither fast and fleet.

Devil of Mt. Etna dread,

Peppino seize by the hairs of his head,

Thou devil of the mouth awry,

Peppino take and bring him nigh.

In Holy Trinity its name,

When sounds Ave Maria bring him home.

It spoiled the congruity of Vanna' s charm that
from force of habit she tacked a Holy Trinity tag
belonging to some other 'razioni to an invocation
of the devil. More to myself than to her I com-
mented: "Why does every love-charm call up the
evil one?"

"He has great power," said Vanna, pulling her-
self to her feet, and confirming her answer with a

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 29

positive glance and nod. She was beginning an
account of Satan's subjects — unbaptized babies who
die while yet pagan and scream forever in the dark-
ness, and dying sinners whose hair "the black man"
clutches, shouting "Come on!" while they howl,
"U-u-u-u-u !" when I brought her back to Pep-
pino.

The "recall" ended, she said, with a prayer, to
"the sainted souls of the beheaded bodies," fol-
lowed by nine paters, nine aves and nine glorias.
During these and after the finish she made "the
listening" standing at her window to catch the night
sounds of the village. If this listening brought
to her ears music or laughter or the ringing of bells,
or the opening of doors, or if a cock crowed or a
dog barked, her prayers were answered. But if
an ass brayed or a cat miaued, or if she heard
quarreling or the splash of water thrown into the
street, these were bad omens.

She folded away Peppino's goods and began
cutting up lettuce leaves and throwing the green
ribbons on the floor as she told me that, for her,
the best sign of all was the appearance of a little
white puppy that sometimes came and lay on her
knees. When she saw this shadow dog, her 'razioni
never failed. Lacking the puppy, she observed
whether the star to which she had prayed "shut
and then opened again," for this meant that it
heard, thought and said "yes." Our stars, she said,
give us the grace we ask of them.

3o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"It is a great labor," I said; "this recall."
"Yes," she admitted; "but it never fails."
While the hens fought for the lettuce she asked
to hear my prayer again, and I read: "Do thou,
my Lady Moon, shine clear and fair, for softly,
Goddess, to thee will I sing, and to Hecate of
hell. The very whelps shiver before her as she
fares through black blood and across the barrows
of the dead. Hail, awful Hecate! to the end be

thou of our company "

When Vanna realized that my 'razioni, as well as
her own, included knots, a turning spell, dogs and
invocations to the moon and to a ruler of hell, she
agreed that for a book prayer it was not bad.

I continued to read, and we were still comparing
notes when there came a thump at the door. "The
old man!" sighed Vanna, going to let him in. "He
swears by the Holy Devil," she said, "if he finds
the door shut."

Instead of swearing, the old man scuffed and
stumped across the floor and hid himself in a chair
behind the bed. But our seance was over. When
I asked Vanna to complete the recall by reciting
her prayer to the souls of the beheaded — criminals
who, expiating their deeds by the forfeit of their
lives, have acquired power to work miracles — she
was absorbed in the pot of basil on her window
ledge. She must put a wet cloth over it at night,
she said, to make it grow better. She offered me

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 31

a few fragrant sprigs together with a double lemon
— two lemons merged in one except for their twisted
ends.

"It is against malocchio; it makes the horns,"
she assured me, tucking it into my handbag.

My first thought on reaching home was to look
up an old prayer to S. Vito that I happened to
have copied long before. The chief function of
this saint is to protect from the bite of mad dogs;
he also casts out evil spirits, and his underworld
connections are such that for centuries lovers have
appealed to him. Gna Vanna's prayer, in fact, is a
time-battered fragment of an old charm, included
in a manuscript book of "secrets for making gold,
constraining devils, evoking and divining the future"
that was taken from Dr. Orazio di Adamo and
used as evidence against him in his trial for witch-
craft at Palermo in 1623.

This 'razioni was to be said in a garden by moon-
light. At the end a knife was to be stuck into a
tree.

Dr. Pitre gives a charm practically identical with
Adamo's as still in use; but I have come upon
nothing more than fragments which have undergone
many changes. Once, for example, while a good-
natured dealer in antiques was turning her drawers
upside down for me in search of some trifle, there
fell out a crumpled paper scrawled over with char-
acters so illegible that it was with difficulty I recog-

32 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

nized the prayer to S. Vito. The first six lines
ran like Vanna's; then, as to the dogs, it continued:

You must "sick" them into S 's heart,

Hard as the pain of my grief's dart.

And there it stopped. On the other side of the
paper was a charm to be said in church. Smoothing
out the sheet before us, my friend informed me
with hesitation that to use it one must enter the
church with the left foot foremost, hiding a red
cord under the shawl. At the moment of the con-
secration one must make three knots in the cord,
saying:

I do not come to mass to hear,
Nor yet to worship Christ so dear.
I come to bind with this my noose;
I bind, I tie, I do not loose
Till my love does all my pleasure.
His feet I tie with this my noose,
His hands I bind, I do not loose
Till my love does all my pleasure.

"It was a woman in Catania," said my friend,
"who gave me these."

"A wise woman?" I suggested.

"Yes," she confessed; "but I don't use them.
Sometimes when my husband is away on his busi-
ness trips I should like to know — but I don't be-
lieve in charms. And yet — do you know X ?

He used to beat his wife till all the neighbors heard,

ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 33

and now he takes her out in an automobile. They
say she puts drops of her blood in his coffee. Some

things don't seem true and yet But charms

can't be of any use, else every man in Taormina
would be married to a rich tourist."

Elf-locks and incubators! Love-charms and
automobiles !

CHAPTER II
Donna Pruvidenza's Lemon

John Bly and William Bly testified that, being employed
by Bridget Bishop to help take down the Cellar-wall of the
old House, wherein she formerly Lived, they did in Holes
of the said old Wall find several Poppets, made up of Rags
and Hogs Brussels, with headless Pins in them, the Points
being outward.— Cotton Mather. Wonders of the Invisible
World. Testimony against Bridget Bishop, executed, Salem,
Mass., June 10, 1692.

On the eighth of May, 1913, there appeared in
the "Giornale di Sicilia," of Palermo, an item which
I abridge as follows:

Yesterday an old man and woman, red-faced and out of
breath, followed by a crowd of excited women, burst into
the procuratore's office, crying: "We have found it! Look,
Signore ! Look !"

"See!" shouted the man; "see what killed our daughter!"

The man laid on the table two parcels, one containing
locks of chestnut hair, the other something made of wool.

"Here is what killed my daughter!" screamed the woman,
shuddering with terror. "Here is the witchcraft!"

The two people were Emanuele Malerba and his wife An-
tonina Bracciante, whose daughter died some time ago, a
few months after marriage. The parents have suspected the
girl's mother-in-law, who opposed the match, of making
away with her by witchcraft.

All the furniture, including the marriage bed, which the

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 35

girl had carried as dowry to her husband, was restored in
due course to her family; and the old mother, picking over
the mattress, pricked her hand. Searching inside the bed,
she found something in the shape of a doll into which were
stuck a large needle, two safety pins, one black and the
other white; and two other safety pins on each of which was
transfixed a seed of a nespolo (medlar).

"Here is the witchcraft!" she thought.

As soon as she had recovered she ran to tell her husband
and the neighbors. The quarter was thrown into commotion.
To die at eighteen years by the will of God is one thing; to
perish through the brutal malignity of a mother-in-law is
quite another.

One of the women explained : "When the seed dried, poor
Rusidda died."

"You see," said another, pointing to the doll without
daring to touch it; "there is a seed at its stomach, which
means that the witchcraft was made in the stomach of
Rusidda."

"It is true," shuddered the mother; "my daughter com-
plained always of stomach pains."

The two old people denounced the fact to the police, and
when their complaint was not received seriously, they betook
themselves to the public prosecutor, who also met their de-
mand for justice with good-natured laughter.

The father and mother, once again at home, allowed a
brave young neighbor to cut open the image. When there
came out more nespoli seeds mixed with sawdust they re-
turned to their belief in the strange doll's errand of murder.

"There is no justice!" they raved, glaring at the by-
standers; "there is no justice 1"

There were thousands of years when learned
judges did not laugh at such dolls, and ignorance
does not yet laugh at them.

Twelve hundred years before Christ, in the reign
of Rameses III, a steward of the king was prose-
cuted in an Egyptian court of law for causing

36 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

paralysis to men and women by making wax figures
of them. As late as 1692 the finding of "poppets"
stuck full of pins was admitted in Salem, Mass.,
as evidence in a witch trial. Even now, maltreating
an image to harm a man, if not actionable in court,
and if not as usual everywhere as it may be in
Amoy, where bamboo and paper "substitutes of per-
sons" are sold ready-made, is certainly not a form
of imitative magic confined to the primitive
Bakongo.

"Substitutes of persons" are not uncommon in
Sicily; but oftener than into a human figure, simple
like those of Amoy, or elaborate like those which
thirteenth century black art modeled with the fea-
tures of an enemy and baptized with his name,
Sicilian magic stabs its jeers or its threats into an
Qgg or a lemon, a potato or even a piece of meat.

The first lemon of this sort that ever I saw in
Taormina was a "substitute" of Donna Pruvidenza,
and I had sight of it, as it were, by accident. If
Donna Pruvidenza' s confessor had not chanced to
be at a church convention in Malta, she would have
taken the "making" straight to him, after the man-
ner of the more devout, to beg that he read a prayer
over it, first putting on his stole. It was the absence
of the priest that sent her to the kindly family who
exorcised the lemon, much as he might have done,
perhaps, by assuring her that it could do no harm ;
and who suggested that she bring it to me.

It was on the terrace outside the dining ^oom

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 37

that Donna Pruvidenza found me; and no sooner
had Pietro set a chair and brought a second coffee
cup than I saw that hers was no ordinary visit ; for
though she drank with appreciation and was lavish
of morning compliments, her manner was at once
uneasy and that of a person even more conscious
than prim little Donna Pruvidenza commonly is of
her own importance.

''Dear little Missy," she said when the coffee was
finished, "can we not withdraw to some location
less public? What I have to say to you is conse-
quential."

"Let us go to my room," I assented, for beyond
the long window stood Pietro, arranging flowers for
luncheon by putting into each glass blossoms of as
many different colors as possible.

As he opened the door for our retreat I saw him
glance at a cloth Donna Pruvidenza carried, for it
hurt Pietro's sense of the proprieties that parcels
brought to me were apt to hold gifts of carob pods,
dried chestnuts or hard little salted olives, beneath
the dignity, as he considered it, of the dining room.

In the quiet of my chamber Donna Pruvidenza
untied the kerchief and laid it on the table.

"Ah," I said, seeing among the folds of the cloth
the shape of a lemon; "have you brought me some
fruit?"

"Cara Signurinedda!" There was horror in
Donna Pruvidenza's voice, and in the gesture of
her hands.

38 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Looking closer, I saw that the lemon which lay
on the kerchief was livid with black and purple
spots, exuding moisture and at the same time drying
and warping out of shape. Stuck into it were nails,
the rusty shanks of which were beginning to show
as the fruit twisted, shrinking away from them.

"What is that? A fattura?" I exclaimed, guess-
ing at the meaning of the ugly thing.

The parchment of Donna Pruvidenza's brown
face crinkled with indignation. "It is a brutal sur-
prise that I have brought the Signurinedda !" she
ejaculated, her hands denouncing the authors of the
injury; "a surprise for me, an orphan who have no
one to vindicate me, who am dedicated to the service
of God, and who look for nothing but his graciosity
and the protectorate of good people !"

"Where did it come from ?" I questioned.

Donna Pruvidenza began her account of the
lemon with praise of her grandparents. While in
quaint, high-flown phrase she extolled her family,
I drew the kerchief to my side of the table. "The
Signurinedda must not touch the 'gghiommaru' !"
she interrupted herself to warn me.

Why instead of lemon she said "gghiommaru,,,
which means anything round like a ball of thread,
I can only guess. Donna Pruvidenza never uses a
common word when she can find an uncommon one.

I had counted three needles, seven pins and five
screws piercing the lemon, and had reached the
thirty-first nail when she came to her own childhood.

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 39

"I called my progenitors 'father' and 'mother,'
as did Jesus Christ, and morning and evening I
asked their blessing, kissing their hands. While
in the days of to-day the very offscouring of the
streets scream 'Papa!' 'Mamma!' as if they were
ladies and gentlemen! . . . Madonna mia! The
Signurinedda must not touch the thing!"

"Where did you get it ?" I reiterated, pushing the
kerchief away from me.

"It is of the devil ! Of the brute beast !"

Donna Pruvidenza would not be hurried. Half-
listening to the ills of life that had reduced a person
of her worth to the one inherited room that was
her sole remaining property, I noticed that the nails
ranged from cobbler's tacks to blacksmith's sizes
and even to crooked board nails.

In spite of all reassurances, my guest was ill at
ease ; but no hoodoo could lessen the innocent satis-
faction with which, pursing her lips and arching
her brows like an old-fashioned New England spin-
ster, she pouted out the river of her talk until she
came at last to the great discovery.

Someone had hidden the lemon in her oven.
There it might have stayed, she said, till the viaticum
was brought and the passing bell was tolled for her,
since she never had flour with which to bake, if
she had not touched it accidentally while reaching
for a brush she kept inside.

Donna Pruvidenza is old, nearly hump-backed
and half-blind. She is poor, short of temper and

4o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

sharp of tongue, the butt of many a brutal jest;
but pride and an applauding conscience brought a
smile of conviction to her lips as she said she must
have been attacked because of envy.

"Dear Missy, I am envied," she assured me ; "and
where there is envy there is witchcraft, or there is
the blow of the eye."

Someone must have entered her room while she
was at mass, she thought, or receiving the evening
benediction; some evil-minded neighbor who saw
that, even if she was poor and condemned to live
in a bare and squalid nest, good friends when they
had a nice dish to eat often sent for her to enjoy
it with them. Because of her friends some envious
person must have said, "How she is respected ! This
morning So-and-So has sent her salted codfish!
Such-a-One has given her a dress for the festa of
San Pancrazio !"

There flashed through my mind a vision of the
cast-off dinner dress left by some tourist to a charity
fund in Taormina, which Donna Pruvidenza had
trailed with dignity through the dust of the Corso.

"Dear little Missy," she concluded, "can any but
the envious think me greedy if I accept now and
then a cup of broth or even a little meat? Surely
a person worthy of respect, an orphan without father
or mother, ought not to suffer !"

"The family you mentioned," I ventured, "are
not your friends?"

"Bad people !" It was not a month since Donna

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 41

Pruvidenza had begged her confessor to tell the
man's wife that if she must throw at respectable
neighbors words as hard as dog-killing stones, at
least she should throw them gently! gently! And
this was the answer — to hide in her house a charm,
as if she were a witch!

"It is not that I fear!" she protested. "Not a
leaf moves without the will of God; but" — she
pushed her chair farther from the kerchief — "who
would not shudder at the malignity that fills a lemon
with nails?"

Through the open window there came the cry
of a peddler! "Sixty brass pins for a soldo! Four
yards of tape for a soldo! Look, females; Look
and buy ! 'Tis a sin to leave them !"

"Sixty pins for a soldo !" groaned Donna Pruvi-
denza; "and this is stuffed with nails!"

Her emphasis led me to ask, "Are nails worse
than pins?"

"Signurinedda !" Donna Pruvidenza was shocked.
"Nails fastened our Lord to the cross! Never be-
fore have I seen a 'gghiommaru' filled with nails !"

In the end, Donna Pruvidenza gave me the lemon.
It was not likely to harm me, she said, since the
sending was not against me; and as to herself, she
was not afraid, though it would be well if I would
promise not to throw it away but to burn it, first
taking out the nails. These points settled, she pulled
up her rusty black shawl around her shoulders and
trotted away — a pathetic little figure, pursing her

42 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

lips and smiling with the discreet happiness of those
conscious of well-doing.

At the door she turned to say, "Cara Signuri-
nedda, let all this remain between you and me."

I had no thought of betraying Donna Pruvidenza's
secret, but an hour later when I returned to my
room the box into which I had shut the lemon was
on the floor, and Tidda the Bat, dusting cloth in
hand, was gazing at the evil looking fruit with
horrified curiosity. "I did not touch it," she said
in explanation; "it went down."

Tidda 'a Taddarita has a way of bumping about
the room as aimlessly as her namesake, the bat.
This morning, whether dusting or bringing water,
or lowering canvas screens against the May sun,
her motions were even more hit-or-miss than usual.
She did not pick up the lemon, and she could not
keep her eyes away from it; she revolved around
it, striking against whatever stood in the way. It
was not until she stood at the open door, her tasks
done, that she said, turning for once her brown and
peaked face in my direction :

"Scusi ; was that made against the Signurinedda?"

"No," I answered, stopping to pick it up.

"Jesus, Joseph and Mary! Jesus, Joseph and
Mary!" Tidda crossed herself hastily, backing into
the hallway. "For the love of God ! Little Missy,
don't touch the bewitched thing !"

I dropped the lemon into its box. "But since it
is not against me "

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 43

"For the love of God !" Tidda' s face worked con-
vulsively. "One sees that the Signurinedda does
not understand such things I"

Tidda is a forlorn creature with high red cheek-
bones, shiny little African eyes and a low forehead
covered with black hair. By trade she is a carrier
of water. Morning, noon and night, an earthen
quartara on her head, her small black-clad figure
comes to our door. Sometimes when the domestic
machinery stalls I find her at work inside.

Shutting the door with a blow of her broom, she
poured out a flood of tales. Years ago there was
a good woman in Taormina, she said, who used to
give food to the prisoners in the jail. One day when
this woman felt ill, a woman in the jail who was
a witch asked her many questions and then begged
her to bring an egg when she came back next day.
The sick woman brought a fresh egg, laid by one
of her own hens ; but when the witch broke the shell
it was full of broken glass. The sick woman at once
felt well.

"That was long ago,,, I commented.

"But it's not six months," returned Tidda, "since
my chum found thorns in an orange stuck into the
wall beside her door; and who knows what might
have happened if she had not asked the priest to
bless it ?"

"At least nothing did happen," I suggested.
"Someone is ringing."

"Something happened to Vitu 'u Moddu," Tidda

44 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

persisted, shaking her head impatiently as a bell
sounded from a neighboring room.

"The Signurinedda knows Vitu the Soft, steward
for the English in the villa? Two years ago Vitu
fell so ill that no medicine could help him. Month
after month he lay groaning in bed till one day a
hunter thought he saw a bird fly into a hole in the
rock above Vitu's house. The Signurinedda knows
the place, under the hill on the path to Monte
Ziretto ? So the hunter climbed up and put his hand
into the hole; but it was not a nest of sparrows
that he pulled out; it was the head of a kid full of
pins. Vitu's wife called a priest to undo the spell,
and Vitu has been as well ever since as he was
before."

Again the bell rang, but Tidda had plunged into
the case of an uncle saved from death by a witch-
finder's discovery of a thorn-filled potato. From
the uncle she jumped to the tale of a bedridden
woman who walked as soon as her son had dug
in a place pointed out by a passing stranger. "Your
ills are before your door," the stranger said, and
indeed they found the dried liver of an animal.

"Bad people do these things/' she concluded, as
a third time the bell jangled; "witches who ought to
die like dogs ! Why does the Signurinedda handle
things made by witches?"

After luncheon a fear that Tidda might gossip
about the lemon was confirmed when Pietro detained
me in the dining-room to see a photograph of the

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 4$

palace on Statcn Island inhabited by his brother.
The "palazzo," which looked like a brick tenement,
was distant from New York one little hour by train-
in-air, steamship and train-of-fire ; and to it he
wished to send a package for which would I please
write the address?

Pietro did not approach abruptly the topic of
Donna Pruvidenza's lemon. The parcel was to con-
tain razors, for Pietro's brother is a barber, and
in New York razors cost too much money. There
were to be stockings knitted by his signora — Pietro's
wife is his "lady" — and a loaf of baked "ricotta,"
which is curd sun-dried and browned in an oven.
For his brother's children there was a quantity of
a hard almond sweet called "torrone."

It was while we were planning the packing of
these articles that Pietro began a gently superior
discourse on Tidda's cowardice and my curiosity
as to lemons. A lemon turned into a pincushion
was only a lemon. He ought to know, for had he
not paid more than four hundred lire for the finding
of a piece of meat stuck full of nails? And had it
done him any good to have the nails taken out ? Not ,
a particle ! Once he had believed such foolishness, i
but now he knew better.

'Tour hundred lire!" I exclaimed; for Pietro is a .
plodding man of fifty, careful of his money.

"Four hundred lire!" he repeated with mild
cynicism; was he not then a judge of such matters?

The thing had happened some years earlier, het

46 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

said, when he had given up his profession as a
waiter, because his signora had tired of starching
shirts and collars. "A waiter," he exclaimed, with
a glance at his linen, "must always be clean."

So he had opened a shop for the sale of salted
codfish, oil, wine and macaroni — such things as
people need. But trade was not good, and to make
matters worse a great oil jar leaked one night, and
the oil ran over the floor and even into the street.
Now to spill oil is a bad sign, and for days his lady
was ill with worry.

Just at this time there came to their door one
morning a woman who begged food. When she
had eaten and rested, the poor woman seemed grate-
ful, and offered to search the house for the evil
influence that interfered with sales. When he and
his signora understood that she had such power
they agreed gladly. So for days she searched, eat-
ing always of the best, until at last she declared the
place was haunted by a demon.

"We believed her," said Pietro with melancholy
scorn of past credulity, "because, though we never
saw anything, we often heard a 'pum ! pum !' "

"E-e-e — I think now," he added with hesitant
utterance that was not yet a stammer, "that she may
have made the noise herself."

The woman carried away a suit of Pietro's cloth-
ing, which she said must be burned. "It was a good
suit," he sighed reminiscently.

One night she led him and his lady to a lonely

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 47

place behind a church, when she made them dig at
the roots of a clump of fichi d'India. The charm
was buried there, she said ; but they found nothing.
The next night she took them down to the sea and
walked into the water until it reached her knees.
There she searched a long time, and when she came
back she brought a bag that held a piece of meat
full of broken glass and nails. This, she said, was
the source of their misfortunes; some rival had
pierced the flesh as if it had been their bodies.

The woman took the nails out of the meat and
burned it. Then she sprinkled salt and water in the
house, repeating charms. She demanded much
money because she had found the charm in the sea.

"That proved her clever?" I questioned.

"Yes," conceded Pietro; "at least she said so."

"Of course," confirmed Tidda, who had bumped
into the room and was picking up dishes. "The
Signurinedda sees that a charm hidden in a house
may perhaps be found quickly, and so do little
mischief; but what is lost in the sea only a person
of great power can find. It goes on working until
it kills the one against whom it was made. For a
charm thrown into the sea there is no pardon; God
cannot forgive such wickedness."

"Business was no better," said Pietro skeptically,
comforting himself with bites at a medlar. "I gave
up the shop and came back to waiting."

Before the day was done I took the lemon to the
padrona's sewing room, begging her to check

48 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Tidda's tongue, though I had no faith that our
silence would prevent the spreading of Donna
Pruvidenza's news.

The mistress of our house is so wise in the lore
of the people that whatever of interest I hear is
submitted to her judgment. Looking up from her
mending, she regarded curiously the discolored
lemon, which was still leaking juice and bulging and
shrinking around the puncture of the rusty nails.
Poking it with her plump thimble finger, she told
me fresh tales of haps and mishaps with charms.
Often as she had heard of such things, never before,
she said, had she seen one.

"But fear of witchcraft," I queried, "is not yet
forgotten ?"

The padrona looked long toward the courtyard
beyond the terrace, where her husband and the cook
were bowling: "Fear of lemons like this, yes," she
said finally. "If a woman's neighbors think her a
witch and threaten her with this counter-witchcraft,
one sees the threat is harmless, because such people
do not know the proper words to use when sticking
in the nails."

"What proper words?" demanded Maria, the
laundress, checking her song, "The sun which goes
to-day returns to-morrow," as she came in from
the terrace with an armload of folded towels.

Maria told us the tale of a girl who once picked
up a lemon from the ground, when teased about her
betrothed, and in a joke began pricking it with

Door Charms for Evil Eye

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 49

thorns. "This in his head !" she said. "This in his
arm! This in his leg!" The girl was washing at
the riverside, and no sooner had she and the others
reached home with their bundles of dry clothes than
she heard that her betrothed had come from reaping
seized with terrible pains. Running back to her
washing stone, she found the lemon and pulled out
the thorns. Next morning her lover was well.

"What words did that girl know?" laughed Maria,
as she took up her song again and started towards
the garden to pick towels from the flowering bushes.
"The thorns are the thing !"

In Sicilian magic few acts are performed without
accompanying incantations. The padrona's re-
minder, therefore, of the need of words decided
me not to touch the nails until I knew whether their
extraction required a formula. I did not hope to
learn the putting in of nails. "Release, yes; bind,
no," is a saying in the mouth of every adept. But
if to black magic no one would own, in the white
magic of undoing a spell someone might instruct
me.

Gna Angela, called the Fox, who censes houses to
drive out the evil eye, and Gna Vanna, the Grass-
hopper-eater, who claims uncanny powers, because
of her protection by the "ladies," were the women
I planned to consult. I should not have thought
of Za Tonietta, whose dealings with the unknown
are more limited, had I not come across her next

5o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

morning, crouched in a recess of the ivy-clad wall
near my own door. Indeed, at first nothing was
farther from my thoughts than magic, for Za
Tonietta's grizzled hair stood up in moist rings, her
kerchief was open at the throat, and she was gasp-
ing "As God wills," bent double with asthma.

I sat down beside her in the flickering shade of
the pepper trees, and after a while, when the strug-
gle for breath became less violent, she told me that
she was on her way to a house where a death had
occurred, to sprinkle holy water, which she had
taken from the three fonts of the Matrice, the
mother church. In her lap there lay a bottle which
still carried a Worcestershire-sauce label.

While we rested there came in sight a swarm of
children playing a favorite game of our street —
conducting a saint's procession. Down the winding
road, carried on the shoulders of ivy-crowned boys
and girls, advanced a toy Vara, adorned with
candles and flowers, and holding, instead of a church
image, a rude print of Sant' Alfio and his brothers.
Ahead marched a tiny boy ringing a bell to stop and
start the bearers. Behind flocked children shouting
vivas.

"As God wills!" wheezed Za Tonietta, when the
procession, to which she had hardly lifted her eyes,
had gone its way. Sant' Alfio was a powerful saint,
but it was to our own San Pancraziu, great father
of the people, that she prayed:

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 51

1 To the ten thousandth time we raise
San Pancraziu's high praise ;
We praise him daily when we wake,
Who Taormina safe doth make,

she recited, smiling drearily. She had prayed much
to be well, but at night she could not lie in her bed.

In Za Tonietta's windowless house asthma is not
as God, but as building custom wills. Waiting till
she dragged herself to her feet, I rose also ; and then,
remembering my errand, showed her the lemon.

The result startled me. At sight of the shrunken,
ominous-looking thing Za Tonietta dropped back
into her seat, clutching at the bag of amulets pinned
under her dress, and racked by a spasm of coughing
that shook her bowed old figure. When at last she
panted that the lemon was "to die! to die!" I had
had more proof than I liked that it could do mis-
chief.

As Za Tonietta moved wavering down the road
with her holy water, and I turned towards Gna
Vanna and the village, I could think of nothing but
the cruelty of fear which ages of life had not driven
out of so radiant a world.

In the morning sun the gray-green mountain wall
above the town drew so close that I could follow the
movements of men and goats up and down the zig-
zags, to and from the old castle of Taormina, and
the church of the Madonna of the rock.

1 A la decimila vota
Lu ludamu San Pancraziu;
Lu ludamu la matina
Ca prutiggi Taormina.

ITY

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS
LIBRARY

S2 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Over the gray walls between which winds our
road, purple flower clusters hung from the patience
trees. From cypress and cedar, and even from tall
eucalyptus dropped curtains of honeysuckle. Olives
were blossoming green, and the lemon gardens in
white bloom scented the air.

The village was out of doors. As trees gave way
to gray-white houses, I came up with Cola the rope-
maker, who had planted his wheel in a shaded spot
and was rubbing down yellow lengths of cord with
halved lemons.

Beside their doorstones were the gossips, wash-
ing, knitting, spinning, making nets and nursing
babies. Men, too, had brought out chairs to the
cobblestones, where they plaited fishtraps, cobbled
shoes or, seated on the ground, twisted with fingers
and toes store of rush twine against the wheat
binding. Even the tinsmith had littered the street
with petroleum tins to be knocked down to usable
sheets of metal.

I found Gna Vanna standing over a wandering
tinker who was drilling holes in the fragments of
a thick earthen basin. "Have a care !" she warned
the swart young Calabrian, as he raised and lowered
the rude cross-bow contrivance that turned the point
of his drill. "Have a care!" she repeated while he
patched together the huge dish, straddling wire pins
from hole to hole and poking in cement as a final
operation.

Vanna looked cross, and as I stepped indoors to

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 53

avoid the tilt over pennies for the mending, I saw
that an upset house had perhaps upset her temper.
The once smoke-blackened walls were wet with
whitewash, and in the middle of the spattered floor
were heaped goods and chattels.

"Badly have I done!" she fretted, bringing in
the big dish and setting it down anxiously. "The
house was too dirty, but five lire they made me pay !
Bad Christians! They broke the basin, and in a
week smoke and flies will make things worse than
before!"

There is a vent above Vanna's fireplace which
smoke never finds.

Without the name of its owner the charm did not
soothe Gna Vanna. As I took the cover off its
box she signed an impatient cross or two, looking
from it to me with irritation. The victim must be
suffering pains in the ears, eyes and stomach, she
asserted; and whose was the blame if I refused to
take her to the house, so that she might drive out
the witchcraft by her prayers ?

"Vossia knows that I understand these things,"
she pursued with the air of an unappreciated genius,
planting the tip of a skinny forefinger in the middle
of her forehead. "There is no one else who under-
stands them. Let them call me witch! Vossia
knows that I am respected because I have broken
many evil charms."

Whether in the end she would have relented and
taken out the nails, I cannot tell ; for as she jerked

54 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

a chair from the piled up furniture, there crawled
from some cave underneath her grandson Micciu
and the white-faced kid, Sciuriddu. Fresh almond
leaves satisfied "Little Flower"; but Micciu ranged
the floor, dragging the kid by the red rag at his neck,
scrambling after a dish of raw, shining fish and
tugging at his one garment, a dingy little shift.

"Nanna," he teased, "take it off, grandma! It's
hot!"

"Fui! Fui! Run away!" scolded Vanna; and the
child, seizing a fish, darted towards the street, bump-
ing into a fleshy, middle-aged woman who appeared
in the doorway.

At sight of me, Comare Alfia, Vanna's sister-in-
law, came forward with hesitation. Lowering her-
self into a chair, she sat in heavy silence, her round,
not unkindly face set in lines of dissatisfaction. My
chance was gone, and I was rising to yield the field
when, responding little by little to complaints about
the price of whitewashing, Comare Alfia gathered
confidence, and put into Vanna's hand a thick
knotted cord braided of red and green rags.

"What is it ?" asked Vanna, glancing sharply from
the braid to the lumpy face of her sister-in-law.

"I want to know," answered Comare Alfia; "what
is it?"

Her suspicious eyes fixed on the cord, Comare
Alfia explained that she had found it an hour before
among the vine cuttings with which she was feeding
the fire in her oven. It might be harmless, but

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S XEMON 55

she could not feel safe unless Vanna undid the
knots, for her head ached and her stomach felt as
if it also were tied in knots. It was just such a
sending that two years earlier had killed her hus-
band, and she knew well the wretches who had
twisted the spell. On that very street they lived,
not many doors away. They had quarreled with
her husband over the price of two hens, and now
perhaps they had braided this cord to twist and tie
her vitals also. The law ought to punish such
assassins.

Gna Vanna studied the braid which had been
made the more deadly by three knots drawn tight.
"It may be," she agreed, "a fattura."

Restored to good humor by her sister-in-law's
openly expressed dependence, Gna Vanna asked me
to show the lemon. At sight of the nails Comare
Alfia displayed something like animation, while I
tried to look wise over the charms. A fellow feeling
being thus established, I was allowed to stay while
Vanna conjured the harm that might have been
planned against her sister-in-law's bowels.

First muttering formulas of which "name of
God" was all I heard, she picked at the first knot
until she had loosened and untied it, repeating the
while:

Hair of God and Mary's hair,
Be called home this witchcraft sair!
Let there be praised and thanked
The most holy Sacrament

S6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

And God's great Mother Mary

And all the heavenly company.

In the name of God and for Jesus' sake,

Let this woman no harm take.

Comare Alfia, who sat hunched forward in her
chair by Vanna's side, paid dolorous attention as
Vanna smoothed the kinky strands and passed to
the second knot, reciting while she tugged with
persistent fingers,

The ass, the ass, he came on feet four;
It was St. Mark on his back he bore.
In the name of God, for St. Pancras' sake,
Let this woman no harm take.

The third knot was more difficult. "The knife!"
called Gna Vanna impatiently. "Micciu, the knife I"

Micciu, who had strayed back to the doorstone,
brought her from the table drawer a knife and the
loaf he found with it. "Always bread in your
mouth! Devil's face!" she ejaculated, kissing him
as she cut a big piece. Then slashing the knot, she
proceeded :

Four loaves and four fishes,
Out, I say, with ill wishes!
Bright angel of the good light,
In three words I break evil's might
In the name of God and of St. John,
If there's harm, I cut; 't is gone.

While Vanna unbraided the strands she continued
to recite charms for good measure. Comare Alfia

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 57

brightened enough to twitch her white kerchief
straight, so that the knot came under her chin.
When I left the house she was gathering the red
and green rags to burn, and Gna Vanna was re-
peating,

2 Star of the Eastern light,
Never back but forward bright.
To the three, to the three, to the three,
And even to the twenty-four.
Now this witchcraft is no more.
In Jesus' name I undo the charm ;
Never more shall it work harm.

Though Gna Vanna had recited nothing over the
lemon, I felt sure that, if I had been able to take
her to Donna Pruvidenza, her procedure, as to the
nails, would not have differed in essentials from
her conjuring of the knots. It was to get, if pos-
sible, a different method that I set out in the after-
noon to find Gna Angela, the Fox, who is perhaps
wiser in old lore than Gna Vanna.

May in Sicily is summer and the town was taking
its siesta. Shops were shut as I passed through
the Corso, streets empty. Nothing stirred but dart-

2 Stidda di lu luveri,
Veni avanti e mai arreri !
A li tri, a li tri, a li tri
E sinu a li ventiquattru ;
Ssu malunatu e sfasciatu.
Pi lu nomu di Gesu,
Sciogghiu ssa fimmina;
E nun mi avi nenti chiu.

58 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

ing lizards. Even the blackbirds were silent in the
many cages ranged against the house walls. But
while I climbed to the high under-the-castle quarter
of Taormina, a little breeze began to wake the sea.
Its effect was magical. • Heavy black wooden doors
opened, and from under round-arched doorways
came women carrying water jars that lay slantwise
on their heads as they started towards the fountains.
Women appeared on little iron balconies taking in
dry clothes from long cane poles. The tottering old
people at the Hospice crept out on their terrace.
Sounds arose of chatter and singing.

From a distance as I approached Gna Angela's
house I saw her across the way from her door,
sitting at her netting beside the wall towards the
sea. She was alone; but even while I hurried for-
ward, there appeared two women coming over the
hill from an opposite direction. They reached her
first. There was a moment of gesticulation; and
then, picking up the chair in which she had been
sitting and another over which were folded the
brown lengths of her net, Gna Angela crossed the
road with the newcomers.

It was too late to retreat ; but instead of following
the three into the house, I sat down on the door-
stone, watching the chickens that old Zu Paulu,
Gna Angela's husband, was taking one by one from
under a tall, rush-woven cage and protecting from
evil eye by tying red rags under their pinfeathery
wings.

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 59

The two women, who looked like mother and
daughter, were telling their errand when Gna An-
gela came to the door to wish me good-day ; and so
it chanced that I overheard their anxiety about the
younger one's husband. Desperately ill he was, the
mother said, in New York. The news had come a
week before, and now for seven days they had had
no letter. Was he getting better or was he dead?
Would Gna Angela tell them?

More than once I had heard Gna Angela, the
Fox, pronounce on the health of absent relatives,
so that her agreement to this request did not sur-
prise me.

Drawing her chair into the breeze at the doorway,
she sat almost at my side, clasping her hands about
her knees and composing herself to immobility.
Little by little her faded eyes became veiled, and
her queer animated old face put on a mask devoid
of expression. Surreptitiously I pulled out a pencil,
for I guessed that she would recite the so-called
"paternoster of San Giuliano,,, protector of travelers.

Presently, crossing herself, she muttered "Jesus,
St. Joseph and Mary!" and then words began to
pour from her lips in a rapid, colorless stream.
Faster and faster, becoming almost inarticulate, ran
the river of sound. It seemed a long time before,
suddenly as it had begun, the flow stopped. The
gray old figure straightened itself. Gna Angela's
eyes brightened, and her half-opened mouth snapped
shut with a look of satisfaction.

60 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"Your spouse is well," she said to the younger
woman. "You will soon hear from him.',

"Are you sure?" the two demanded. There fol-
lowed a hubbub of questions.

"It is certain," replied Gna Angela in the tone
of one who finishes a simple matter. "It is not I
who tell you ; it is San Giuliano himself, the mirac-
ulous saint who never mistakes. Did you not hear ?
The words came quick and smoothly ; I said it three
times through without missing a syllable. It is San
Giuliano himself who says it: Your spouse is well."

As Gna Angela spoke she rose, dismissing her
guests. Old, sinewy, a little bent, she seemed, as
she leaned against a doorpost, indifferent as a sybil
to the doubts of the ignorant. •

"Come, daughter," she said, touching my shoulder
to indicate the turn of another client.

The women were impressed. Dropping coppers
into her hand, they came out of the house, bidding
a cheerful good-by to Zu Paulu as they trudged
down the road, two black figures in the white Sicilian
sunshine.

"Come, daughter," repeated Gna Angela, inviting
me into the bare little room.

By repute Gna Angela is a witch, able to call up
spirits of the dead; but the trade, if such it is, yields
her little more than the bed, the bench and the chest
of the old song of the dancing master:

Trois pas du cote du banc
Et trois pas du cote du lit;

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 61

Trois pas du cote du coffrc
Et trois pas — revenez ici.

Driving out a hen from the heap of stones that
served her as fireplace, Gna Angela questioned me
with a look as she sat down before the broken chair
that held the unfinished net.

"Won't you say the paternoster again?" I begged,
for I had not succeeded in writing the half of the
old charm, which for wrho knows how many cen-
turies, anxious women have invoked for news of
travelers. •

"Again ?" she queried.

I showed my pencil. "Please; say it slowly for
me.

"Ah," she said good-naturedly; "you will tell it
to the wise in your own country. Listen then,
daughter."

Dropping again the reed netting needle, she loos-
ened her neckerchief, uncovering her corded yellow
throat. Then she looked meditatively at me and
away again, and the flood of words recommenced.
I could not keep pace with it, and a request to repeat
caused Gna Angela's jaw to drop and her brown
and yellow mottled face to look hopelessly bewil-
dered.

That old gossip, Pliny, says that in order to
ensure the exact recital of certain Roman public
prayers, one assistant read the formula in advance
of the celebrant, while others kept silence in the

62 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

audience and played the flute to shut out extraneous
sounds. A slip in the prayer spoiled the omens.

Gna Angela had no help, and a slip in the pater-
noster was disastrous. To ensure success she rushed
to the end on impetus. If she paused, the thread

broke.

As nearly as I could catch it, what she recited

ran:

Come the true cross to adore
Which down from Calvary they bore;
May grace and light our .spirits foster
To say St. Julian's paternoster.

Once St. Julian went to the chase ;

In his hand his good stick found its place.

To Mary, great Virgin, chance him led;

Great St. Julian spoke and said:

At this court good friends we be;

From evil foes deliver me;

From doctors, too, and jails unkind

And from misfortune's cruel mind;

From raging demons set me free,

From mad dogs' bites safe let me be.

Should any wish to do me harm,

May a dead man's heart inspire his arm;

But mine the heart of a lion strong

That wreaks its wrath on doers of wrong.

This morn I rose up from the sod,
And my right foot with speed I shod.
St. George's sword to my side I girt ;
Mary's mantle shielded me from hurt.
Then down I went unto the sea,
Where one and all my foes met me;
Down on their faces they fell in the mould,
While I stood up like a lion bold.

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 63

Be it on the road, or indeed safe at home,
Come with me, Saviour, where'er I roam.
Be it on the road or indeed by the way,
Come with me, Mary mother, I pray.
Be it on the road or indeed on the plain,
Come with me ever, St. Julian.
Be it on the road or when danger is near,
Come with me ever, St. Antonine dear.

This St. Julian is he of whom the Golden Legend
says that, having slain in ignorance his father and
mother, he did penance in long wanderings. Indeed
Dr. Pitre gives a form of the paternoster which
begins:

His mother he slaughtered, his father he slew ;
St. Julian he to the mountain flew.

I have heard a similar version from a woman who,
instead of resorting to a witch, had memorized the
charm and would retire into a corner, shut her eyes
and recite it whenever her husband, whose business
took him much from home, failed to return at an
expected time.

When Gna Angela had resumed her netting and
I with apologies for my many questions, had pro-
duced the lemon, I discovered a witch's limitations.
Gna Angela could cure headache by driving away
its cause — the evil eye; she could tell me of the life
or death of friends beyond the ocean; but before
the lemon she confessed ignorance.

Touching gingerly the nails which, as the skin
of the fruit grew dry, began to stick out like chevaux

64 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

de frise, she said it would take strong magic, the
magic of a book, to undo such a spell. Once she
had known a priest who had a book of the fifteenth
century. (Fifteenth-century charm-books are most
esteemed.) She had no book. I must ask a priest
to read a prayer over it, first putting on his stole.

My second call having proved even less satisfac-
tory than the first, I planned as I left Gna Angela's
door to submit the lemon as a last resort to a witch
of whose powers I had heard much — a woman who
lived at Piedimonte at the foot of Etna. But the
notion was short-lived. I had not yet reached the
flight of steps at the head of my own street when
an urgent voice said, "Cara Signurinedda !" And
there was Donna Pruvidenza harnessed by a string
to a packing case which she was dragging through
the Corso with a serene disregard of on-lookers.

"Dear little Miss !" she repeated in a tone of im-
portance and uneasiness. "That badly educated, the

wife of screams maledictions against all who

respect me ! You have destroyed the lemon ?"

Donna Pruvidenza's apprehensions had so in-
creased that it was not until I had promised imme-
diate action that she demanded admiration of the
packing box. "Firing for weeks ! Hot food I shall

have!" she exulted. "Ah, Missy, 's wife has

reason to envy me my friends !"

The lemon went to the kitchen fire. I have kept
the pins, the needles, the screws and the nails. For

DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 65

Donna Pruvidenza's sake I recited as I pulled them
out, a revised edition of one of Gna V anna's charms:

Star of the Eastern light,

Never back but forward bright.

To the three, to the three, to the three

And even to the twenty-one;

Now this lemon is undone.

Thus do I take out the nails,

And thus the spell of all harm fails.

CHAPTER III
Cola Pesce

The king seized the goblet— he swung it on high,
And, whirling, it fell in the roar of the tide:
"But bring back that goblet again to my eye,
And I'll hold thee the dearest that rides by my side ;
And thine arms shall embrace as thy bride, I decree,
The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee."

—"The Diver." Schiller.

It was at his sister Brigida's wedding party that
Cola asked why I did not come oftener to the
marina to fish with him.

"The Taormina boats are blind,,, I said; "I like
better the fishing boats of Catania, because they have
eyes, and they are painted with saints."

"We carry our saints in our hearts," retorted
Cola, "instead of painting them on our boats."

Then he left me to take his place in the tarantella.
Brigida was dancing, a brown girl with almond-
shaped Arab eyes; and the bridegroom and others
of the fisherfolk. The clear space for the dancers
had but the length of twelve bricks of the uneven
pavement; the musicians had barely room for their
elbows; but the "Sucking Babes" played — it was the
"Babes" and not the "Rats," I think, who sent

COLA PESCE 67

music; the "Babes" and the "Rats," conservatives
and radicals, do not mix at weddings any more than
in politics — till the floor shook, and the basket-work
fish traps that hung in clusters from the ceiling,
shook also.

It was hard to move without stepping on plates,
and Brigida's mother was still dishing roasted kid
and spaghetti to be sent to the neighbors. Brigida's
sister served wine and "Spanish bread," which is a
powdery sponge cake; and later, when the day de-
clined towards sunset, and we had helped Brigida
out of her cotton house dress, and into her dove-
colored wedding silk and white scarf, and had stood
about pretending not to see her weep as she kissed
the hands of her father and mother in good-by, we
walked in procession through the narrow streets
conducting Brigida and Santu to the little white-
washed upper room that was to be the new home.

It was after we had admired the knitted counter-
pane of the big white bed and the fine oil lamp and
the colored prints of saints and the royal family,
and the band had played at the door, and we had
said good wishes to the couple that, as Cola and
I walked away together, he said, "Signorina,
Occhietti, who fishes from Giardini, has a Catania
boat; I shall borrow it, and my father and I will
take you fishing to-morrow morning."

"After all, I prefer the Nuovo Sant' Alfio," I an-
swered.

Cola's boat, the New Saint Alfio, was an old and

68 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

leaky tub as long ago as when I first saw Cola
perched on the wall by the highway above the beach
at Isola Bella, kicking together his hard little-boy
heels and hailing every passing tourist with, "Voli
battellu ? Andiamu a li grotti ?"

The poor old boat has been fishing by night and
taking tourists to the grottoes by day from then
until now, when Cola has done his military service
and feels himself a man; so I repented that I had
scorned so tried a friend as the sea-worn saint and
had longed for painted boats with eyes.

"We'll ask Occhietti to come with us," said Cola,
"and bring his boat, the San Pancraziu."

And so it happened that when I opened my door
at three o'clock next morning a dark figure that
stood leaning against the wall on the opposite side
of the Via Bagnoli Croce started towards me from
under the red-flowering pomegranate tree, and there
was Cola, carrying a little lantern and a big basket,
the padded rim of which was stuck full of the many
hooks of a baited trawl.

"Why have you brought the trap?" I asked, for
setting a trawl is not lively fishing. "Let us lift
some pots for lobsters."

"We shall lift lobster traps," said Cola. "Come
on ! Father has gone down already."

There were stars in the blue-black sky, and the
Fisherman's Path, which drops sharp and steep
from Taormina to the sea, is cut for the most part
against the bare rock face of the mountain; but

COLA PESCE 69

when our stump of a candle flickered out, I could
have wished for another to relight the tiny lantern,
for the zig-zags are rough, and here the heavy leaf-
age of a carob tree, and there a miniature pass,
left us in thick warm darkness without vision. Even
on the blindest turns Cola's bare feet trod boldly as
if it were noon; but my groping hands made sad
acquaintance in the long steps down from stone
to stone with dusty brambles and the harsh stubble
of cut forage, or the dry white stems of wormwood,
for it was mid-June, when the Southern world is
burnt and gritty. There was not a growing thing
along our way except thistle heads and the pink
blossoms of an oleander shrub. But at last we
passed under the walls of the inn that stands by the
high road and so down to the water, just as a low
pale streak in the East began to hint the dawn.

At the little curving harbor between Isola Bella
and the rock of Capo Sant' Andrea we found griz-
zled old Vanni, who is Cola's father, and Turriddu,
his cousin, putting rollers under the bow of the
New Saint Alfio and the equally battered Madonna
della Rocca, and drawing the two boats down the
beach. Occhietti's long Catania-built boat, the San
Pancrazio, was just coming up to the landing rock
through the narrow clear way between the stones.

Occhietti, like his boat, is named Pancrazio ; but
his little twinkling eyes make him Occhietti as in-
evitably as Turriddu's thirst makes him Acquaf risca.
Occhietti had been spearing fish all night by the

70 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

light of a gas torch, many-branched, like the horns
of a stag, a light of which most of the older fisher-
men strongly disapprove.

"Very beautiful, Vossia !" he said exultingly ^hold-
ing up to view in the yellow flare, a big poulpe, all
stomach and arms.

"A beauty of a polyp !" exclaimed Turriddu.

"Splendidu!" cried Cola.

"Magnificu !" I echoed as in duty bound.

"Beauty of a torch !" growled VannJ, who is not
moved often to such ill-temper. "Vossia knows that
the light goes down into the water and burns the
fish, so that they do not taste good; and little fish
that are not caught are burned so that they never
grow well."

"Beautiful pennies to pay for the gas!" taunted
Occhietti, dropping the devil fish and poising his
long-handled trident. "Some boatmen have not the
heart to put out the money !"

"A stomach-twisting to you!" snarled Vanni.

"Did you ever hear," I asked in a hurry, "of the
old Greek of Syracuse who ate a poulpe a meter
long and ached so with colic after it that his doctor
told him to dispose quickly of his affairs? 'I have
disposed of all but the head/ he groaned, dying; 'and
if you will bring it, I will dispose of that also.' "

"It is true the stomach must be strong," grinned
Occhietti; "but a good eating of polyp is worth a
twisting of the inwards."

"Come on !" he said sharply to the boy who stood

COLA PESCE 71

at the oars ; and the San Pancrazio slid away over
the warm black water to lie in wait for more poulpes
under the rock shadows of the Beautiful Island.

"Deaf.doctors to you, and dead druggists!" mut-
tered Vanni, angry at the desertion.

Turriddu had hung two great fish-traps shaped
like beehives to the bow-post of the Madonna della
Rocca; he pushed out leisurely behind Occhietti.
Cola brought oars from the fish-house on the beach
and a longish cane with a hook at the end and a
heavy spear. Then we, too, with Vanni, climbed
aboard, and the tubby Nuovo Sant' Alfio took the
water last of the three. Cola's trousers were rolled
up to the knee, and as he stood pushing forward
his clumsy oars tied each to its single oar peg, his
dark figure took just the attitude of the rower in
one of the Herculaneum pictures.

Like most of the Taormina boats, the Nuovo
Sant' Alfio is heavy and squat, hardly more than
fourteen feet long, with three thwarts and decked
a little at the bow. Her sea-keeping furniture is as
dingy as her planks — two traps swinging at her
bow-post, tangles of net like mops stowed under
the bow seat, cheek by jowl with a basket for bread,
a fat jug for carrying water, and a flask for oil;
and in her side cleats, and under foot, knives, stones
for weighing fish and coils of rope twisted of rushes
so roughly that the ends bristle at every joining.

We were outside of Isola Bella, and Vanni was
setting the trawl when we began talking about Cola

72 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Pesce. It takes time to put out four hundred hooks,
passing each through the hand to make sure it is
running true and is well baited. First, Vanni threw
overboard one of our rope coils. A stone tied in
a loop went to the bottom, and at the other end
floated slices of sea-bleached cork strung on the rope
like little islands. Near these floats he tied the trap.
Each drop line with its hook was two meters long,
perhaps, and each was separated by several feet from
its neighbors.

The pale streak in the East was turning crimson,
but the sea was blacker than before. Turriddu had
put out a trolling line at each side of the Madonna
della Rocca, and had headed North beyond our view.
In the distance towards Naxos gleamed the drifting
lights of a dozen torches. From the beach beyond
Capo Sant' Andrea came the distant shouts of men
hauling a seine.

Of a sudden one of Vanni's hooks, as it went over-
side, caught in floating pumice, such as is driven
at times through the Straits of Messina from Strom-
boli. We took aboard some spongy pieces, for the
floors of Taormina are scoured and the hearth for
the winter fire is lined with pumice.

"Do you often And it like this in open sea?" I
asked.

"Oftener at the beach," said Cola. "When the
current sets North it will wash ashore at our
marina."

"Like the body of Cola Pesce?" I suggested.

COLA PESCE 73

"Like Cola Pisci," to my surprise assented Cola.

At Messina I once went fishing with an old man
who prattled of the legendary diver who inspired
Schiller's ballad as of a hero well remembered; but
though tradition says that the body of Nicola, the
Fish, who plunged into the whirlpool of Charybdis
to gratify a whim of Frederic II, the Suabian, was
cast up at Taormina, and though the tale itself is
one of the commonest told in Sicily, never before
had I heard his name among our fishermen.

"Just where did they find Cola Pesce?" I pursued.

"How should I know?" returned Cola, who is of
the newer days, scornful of old fables. "It is my
father who talks of Cola Pisci," he added.

By this time the trawl was set, and Vanni was
dropping the buoy and anchor. I was silent until
he had finished ; then, as the Nuovo Sant' Alfio, now
half a mile beyond the island, turned slowly towards
its outer ledges, I said, "Aren't there dolphins out
yon? They remind me always of Cola Pesce."

Vanni is taciturn when his son is with us, and
I glanced towards his end of the boat without much
hope of drawing an opinion. "They bring bad
weather," was his only response at the moment;
but after a little, pulling off his sun-faded cap and
scratching among the curls of his grizzled hair, he
went on slowly:

"In the days of to-day there is no one who speaks
of Cola Pisci. The young men have never heard
of him. But my mate and I reason together about

74 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

him once in a while, because we are of the old
times. My 'cumpari' does not wish to believe it,
but I hold that Cola Pisci deceived the king."

"You think," I asked, "that he was not drowned?"

"No," said Vanni. "There are those who hold
that he swam away under the sea, because he was
half man and half fish; but I say that he deceived
the king. My chum says that the king threw into
the sea a cup of gold ; but my grandfather, who died
very old, always told me that it was a golden plate
that twinkled with precious stones."

Vanni spoke deliberately, planning his argument.

"And the king threw this plate into the round
whirlpool that they call the 'Carnation' ?"

"Yes, Charybdis. And the king said to Cola
Pisci, Tf you go to the bottom and bring it up
to me again, it is yours !' And Cola threw himself
into the sea and brought back the king's plate in
his hand. 'There it is, Majesty!' he said. And
the king gave it to him as he had promised. But
then the king threw in a ring, and told Cola he must
go down a second time and bring this up also.

"Why?" demanded Vanni, his bronzed wrinkled
face asking the question as earnestly as his tone.
"Why did the King say to Cola Pisci, 'Again you
must go down and you must fetch me this ring?'

"Because," replied Vanni to his own question,
"my grandfather said that when Cola brought back
the golden plate he had not been to the bottom.
How did he know? My grandfather's ancients said

COLA PESCE 75

that Cola had not been gone long enough to get
to the bottom ; and they were fishermen. A fisher-
man always knows the depth of water. The boat-
men of Messina must have told the king how many
fathoms deep is Charybdis. And then the plate "

Vanni finished the sentence with his hand, rocking
it to show the dipping motion with which a flat
object sinks slowly, like a falling leaf.

"Understand, Vossia?" He repeated the dipping
motion. "It was still near the surface when Cola
reached it. It was for this that the king sent him
down again, to go really to the bottom, which Cola
did not succeed in doing. You persuade yourself,
Vossia?''

Vanni did not argue as a partisan. His heavy
grizzled brows shadowed his puckered face, and he
smiled good-humored admission of the perplexities
of the case as he reasoned his way through it ; but
at the end he lifted his head with the air of one
whom logic has satisfied. His "You persuade your-
self, Vossia?" was less a question than a chance for
me to affirm my conviction.

"But Cola's body," I queried, "where did it come
to land?" -

"My grandfather's ancients told him nothing of
that," he answered. "Somewhere at the beach ; or
it might be yonder at the Grotto of the Bats."

In the tourist season the Grotto of the Bats be-
comes the Grotto of the Doves, and there are those
who count its changing emerald lights more beauti-

76 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

ful than those of the Blue Grotto of Capri. Look-
ing across at its mouth in the wall of Capo Sant' An-
drea was like regarding the grave of Poseidon; for
Cola Pesce, who, according to Messina, was a mar-
velous diver who explored the bottom of the straits,
and according to Vanni was a man who deceived
the king, was but another phase, according to Dr.
Pitre's folklore studies, of San Nicola, and of Nep-
tune, and even of Old Nick of Northern sailors.

"How deep is the water over there ?" I wondered.

"Outside the grotto, six fathoms, perhaps "

Vanni was marking "braccie" with outstretched
arms when Cola, weary of his namesake, inter-
rupted: "In the days of to-day men go under the
sea in diving bells ; but as to the past, such tales are
fables. Ecco, our floats!"

Vanni and I were silent, a little shy before Cola's
young wisdom. The Nuovo Sant' Alfio was now
under Isola Bella, and just ahead floated another
set of cork buoys. We had come to lift traps in
search of bait for the larger traps that are set for
lobsters.

Vanni took my place at the stern; and, fixing
in place a small block and wheel, he seized the rope
the corks supported, and passed it over the pulley.
One hairy leg inside the boat and one outside, his
sun-bleached shirt and trousers gray in the growing
light, he presented a lean and still sinewy figure
as he began to haul. The huge baskets came up
slowly. As the first appeared at the water's edge,

COLA PESCE 77

he redoubled his efforts, bringing it dripping into
the boat, where it stood nearly three feet tall, its
funnel-shaped entrance defended against escaping
fish by a chevaux de frise of rush ends pointing up
from the broad bottom.

Unpinning from the thimble top the small round
cover, he shook into the boat a dozen or more of
the tiny black fish that are called "little monks."
Then, fastening the cover again with wooden pins,
he rinsed the hive-shaped trap and tossed it at my
feet, the very pattern, perhaps, of Pliny's "osier
kipes" for taking "purples" for making dye.

But Pliny's traps were baited with cockles. In
Vanni's there was nothing. "The little monks do
not go in for food," he answered to my query.
"They take delight in the traps ; they go in to play.
We do not bait them."

The little monks did not seem on pleasure bent
that morning. One by one Vanni hauled traps until
the boat was piled with them, as with a towering
load of bubbles ; and still we had taken little — a few
monks, a few dozen shrimps, some wee red "ruf-
fiani" and half a dozen "coralli," striped orange,
white and green.

It was not until nine or ten traps were up that
Cola pointed to rising bubbles. "Eels!" he ex-
claimed.

Vanni was working too hard to speak. He puck-
ered his lips as if to whistle.

78 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"The eels do like children with their mouths/'
explained Cola; "they whistle/'

Bubble after bubble came to the surface and at
last appeared the trap, which held two conger eels,
each of six to eight pounds. The last trap should
have held an eel, also, but instead there was a hole
in its wicker side.

"Robber!" said Cola disgustedly. "He ate the
monk and then bit out a hole and got away."

When the traps were all up, Vanni put them down
again one by one, while the boat moved just enough
to float them apart, the floats marking as before the
end of the long rope on which they were strung.
The two fresh traps that swung from the bow-post
went down in place of the torn one and another
which we carried away to be cleaned and mended.

By this time the stars had faded. The dark red
streaks in the Eastern sky had paled to pink and
gray, and the morning clouds were like delicate
wings brushing the sky. In the clear dawn-light
the straits narrowed up sharply to the North of us
towards Messina, and the saddle of the mountains
of Aspromonte was defined to the smallest detail.
At one side of us was the rocky Isola Bella, at the
other the red marble ridge of Capo Sant' Andrea.
Behind us rose the hills of Taormina, parched and
brown, more bare and rigid than in winter. The
sea was smooth and silvery.

As the boat slid leisurely back to the trawl we
had left almost an hour earlier, the pink in the

COLA PESCE 79

East brightened again until it was saffron. One
held one's breath in sharp suspense waiting for the
sun. Minute by minute the saffron became more
vivid and the waiting more tense, until at last a
knife-like gleam flashed above Calabria.

"Does the sun come up just the same in your
country?" asked Vanni, while we watched the red
crescent become a globe and slowly lift itself from
the horizon. "They say it is the earth that moves ;
it does not seem so, but Vossia, who has been in
many places and perhaps understands the seven
languages of the world, should know."

The trawl as Vanni stripped it did not net us
many fish. From the four hundred hooks we took
not more than half a dozen "uopi," or "bo-opi";
brilliant little eye-shaped fish spotted with red ; ox-
eyes, according to their name, like those of Hera.

"Thieves!" again exclaimed Cola. "The fish eat
the bait, and if they don't bite hard, they get away."

Turriddu's boat was now again in sight. He had
taken in his trolling lines, and we headed out to
meet him without bait-fish, for he was ready to haul
the lobster pots sunk in deep water.

Before we reached him we could see that the trap
refused to come. His straining figure silhouetted
against sea and sky put forth its strength to no
purpose. The powerful current running South from
the straits must have twisted a rope, Cola said, under
a rock. When we came up with the Madonna della
Rocca he stepped aboard of her and took the oars,

80 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

pushing at top strength against the tide, while Tur-
riddu continued to haul.

The cousins were much alike, with the brown
skin, straight nose and fine features of Arabs. Cola
was much the younger, and his crisp hair, almond
eyes and flashing teeth made him as he bent to his
work, a swarthy model for a statue of labor.

There were sixty fathoms of water under the
boat, Vanni said, and it would be hard to free the
trap before the tide turned. Vanni measures the
depth of water as the Romans used to do, by "brac-
cie," though the Roman braccium was under five
feet, while nowadays, it has become a fathom.

We left the two men at the task and headed south
of the island. The men who had been fishing by
torch-light had finished their work, and their boats
scattered over the sea as far away as Capo Schizo
were putting ashore. Over the water came the
monotonous, long-drawn wail of their song:

". . . Quantu beddu star cu te.
Lasciu patri,
Lasciu matri,
Lasciu casa
Ppi star cu te."

At the beach South of Capo di Taormina some
twenty men were hauling a "sciabica," a net that
may be an eighth of a mile long, and that was
ancient in the days of the Phoenicians. As the
two files of men, leg-deep in water, pulled in the

COLA PESCE 81

red folds and coiled them in heaps on the sand, the
boat that had cast the seine followed it to shore.
Behind the arms of the net trailed its deep pocket,
which as it was drawn up and emptied, seemed to
hold but little, though a night or two earlier a net
had taken, between sunset and morning, more than
twenty-six hundred pounds of anchovies.

"To-night, maybe," said Vanni, "they will not
take the value of fifteen lire, and of that a third
goes to the net. But that is fishermen's luck. I
myself have paid ten soldi for bait and taken eleven
soldi of fish ; and with one soldo how does one give
food to a family?"

He hesitated, then went on : "I am but one, and
if I were really to fill myself, I could eat all alone
five and a half soldi; that would be only half a kilo
of macaroni. The rich strangers who visit our
country pick a little of many things, but we eat
all we can get of one or two things — bread and
macaroni, or bread and beans. It is only at wed-
dings," he finished confidentially, "that we arrive
at sweets."

As Vanni sent the Nuovo Sant' Alfio in among
the rocks that fringe the south side of Isola Bella,
he dipped a reed into his oil- jar and let fall on the
water a drop or two of oil. Then he put overboard
a tangle of net, dragging it across the bottom by
the hook on his cane rod, keeping within the circle
of the oil mirror. After a little he lifted the net
and took out of it, enmeshed by their spines, half

82 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

a dozen big brown sea urchins, such as sell two or
three for a soldo.

"Shall we eat?" he suggested, bringing out the
basket with bread and cutting the "fruit of the sea'*
as one might slice off the top of a lemon.

It was a pleasant place to breakfast. Isola Bella
lies half way betwene Capo Sant' Andrea and the
slate-black crag of the Capo di Taormina, which
rose across the little bay to our south, broken into
the rugged walls of miniature fiords, rough with
jutting rocks, the haunts of rooks and wild pigeons,
where even in the morning light the green and violet
waves were somber.

On the other side of the boat, almost within hand
reach, dropped the dark green leaves of a leaning
fig tree, rooted in a crevice of the island rock.

There was little depth where we floated. At one
minute through the crystal-clear, radiant water every
breath of the bottom life was visible; at the next
the rock reefs were hidden by streamers of many-
colored sea weed. High overhead circled swallows.
In the air was a clean, pleasant smell of salt and
algse.

"It's good here," said Vanni. He dipped a last
morsel of bread into the cup of a sea urchin, and
picked up again the handful of net and the pole.

With the urchins there came up presently a red
starfish. Vanni laid it out on a thwart, separating
its five points carefully.

COLA PESCE 83

"Fine and red," I commented. "It is against evil
eye."

"Yes," he answered reservedly.

"You don't believe in the evil eye?"

"But, yes," he said, with a considering smile such
as he had given to the case of Cola Pesce. Straight-
ening his bent figure, he wiped his shaggy eyebrows
with a red handkerchief. "Would the priests
fumigate the altar and the people if there was no
evil eye?" He seemed reasoning with himself as
well as me. "The people see the priests swing the
censer and they argue about it. They see that the
fumigation is against evil eye."

"And the starfish " I pursued.

The starfish was for my pleasure.

I spoke of a door that I passed almost daily, where
a horseshoe was nailed between two starfish, and
he said that now and then a family that had suffered
a misfortune would pay a soldo or two for one
large and red. Mothers asked for cowrie shells to
hang at the neck of teething babies; papery white
sea horses, too, would sometimes bring soldi; but
these were not to be had often.

We talked of a hundred things — of the dogfish
with teeth "like a mule," for fear of which the
fishermen dare not nap in the boat in the long sum-
mer nights when they are afloat from evening until
sunrise; and of the great tunny, which the Taormina
men take at times in open sea, looking well not
to get a slap from its tail. And minute by minute

84 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

it grew hot even in the shadow of the wild fig trees ;
so hot that I had grown sleepy when of a sudden
Vanni dropped his cane rod and began to row at
full speed out to sea.

As the boat shot forward, I strained my eyes to
find the object of this chase, but the sea was empty,
white and shimmering. It was some minutes before
I caught sight of an upstanding black fin. Giving
one last powerful shove as we came within striking
distance, Vanni dropped the oars ; and, seizing Cola's
heavy lance-headed pole, he cast it while the boat
shot past what looked like a great black wheel. A
streak of blood stained the water, and the wheel
began to plunge and wallow.

We had speared a huge basking sunfish, better
named in the Italian — a "mola," millstone. It was
not easy to get it into the boat, for it was more than
two feet in diameter, and may have weighed sixty
pounds. At last it lay at our feet, to the eye a
headless, tailless mass, inchoate but for its big black
back and belly fins.

Vanni was more elated than he wished to show.
The rough shagreen hide was thick and good for
nothing, not even for leather, he said. The fish
would be two-thirds waste, and the rest would sell
for soup; it would fetch no more than a few lire;
but as he took a long drink of water from the
fat-bellied jug, and headed the boat again inshore,
his eyes shone with satisfaction. Cola was the

Lobster Pots and Fish Traps

The San Pancrazio

COLA PESCE 85

cleverest lancer, he boasted, of all Taormina, though
when he himself was young

Cola could not beat him yet, I protested.

Fish were plentier in his young days. As a lad
he lanced the mola for sport, he said ; nobody would
have eaten it. Did I know the "palamati" — the
beautiful young tunny fish all blue and silver ? Years
ago the Taormina men caught them as now they
catch anchovies, by the boatload; and sold them
for good prices. But in the days of to-day when
Christians eat meat, even on Fridays, like Turks,
the few fish you get you must give away almost
for nothing.

The Madonna della Rocca was still where we had
left her. Cola and Turriddu must have had a hard
time freeing the traps, for though the boat was piled
high with them, the last were not yet in.

"She's all bubbly domes,,, I said ; "like a floating
mosque."

"A mosque? I don't know," returned Vanni.
"When the tramontano wind blows we can't lift
traps; the boat would be carried out to sea."

When Cola saw us approaching, he shouted,
"You got the mola?"

"Yes," replied Vanni, with assumed indifference.
"How many lobsters?"

"Eight," said Vanni, holding up in each hand a
big red lobster. "Are there lobsters in your country,
Vossia?" he demanded, as we came alongside.

"Ours are green," I said, "before they are cooked."

86 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

'Then they are not so beautiful."

Turriddu was baiting the last trap. Cola tossed
him two or three little monks strung on a rush and
he twisted it across the trap on the inside and pinned
down the cover. They would follow us to the beach,
they said, as soon as the nasse had been put over-
side, stopping on the way for another look at the
trawl.

As we approached the landing rock we saw fish
peddlers waiting with baskets and scales. The fisher-
men do not market their own fish, but sell at the
water's edge, weighing in balances, each man
against his own set of stones. Knives were at work
in a minute, hacking the tough black skin off the
mola.

It was not much past eight o'clock, but sky and
sea were white with scirocco, and the chain of my
watch was so hot that it scorched the hand. Their
fish disposed of, the men would clean out their
boats, light a fire on the beach, cook the remains of
their bait fish, if there were any, and eat before
going up to Taormina.

I walked along the curve of the tiny beach, for
while we were skirting Isola Bella I had noticed
through an opening in the rocks, a pocket overgrown
with acanthus; and I had a mind to have a closer
look at the flowers. It hardly costs a foot-wetting
to pass the ford that makes the broken rock an
island. Split by storm and sun, eaten by the waves,
Isola Bella is fantastic, a caprice of nature. There

COLA PESCE 87

is only a handful of it, and it rises not many meters
above the water, but its crags and precipices, its
beaches and caverns, are as picturesque as they are
lilliputian.

The little refuge it afforded from the heat was
rock shade, for the scanty leafage of its sea-gray
olive trees allowed the sun to pass almost without
hindrance. In a cleft of the rock grew an aloe with
a flower shoot twenty feet tall and thick as a young
tree. Beyond this in a tangled glade surrounded
by a thick scrub of resin-scented "scornabeccu" —
the lentisk of Theocritus — rioted acanthus. The
spikes of its white, purple-veined flowers rose above
my head, mixed with Queen Anne's lace — wild car-
rots.

I do not know how long I had dallied, dreading
the hot climb to Taormina, when there came a mut-
ter of thunder. At sea level, rain in June is almost
a prodigy. Under the rock parapet that skirts the
shore it was impossible to see Etna, the barometer ;
but over the sea the sky had grown threatening.
Cola and Vanni were still at the beach, and I hurried
back to the fish house, taking a stool in the doorway
to await developments.

To my query, "Is water coming ?" Vanni an-
swered, "With difficulty."

Ammazzacarusi was of a different opinion. His
nickname, "Boykiller," handed down from who
knows what incident, through who knows how many
generations, belied the mild, white-haired old fisher-

88 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

man whose boat, the Santa Liberata, was drawn
up beside Cola's. Glancing at the purple and gray
cloud masses through which the sun still managed
to dart an occasional beam, he said gloomily:

8 "June rain ;
Ruin in train."

"In my country," I ventured, "summer rains are
good for the crops."

Patiently, painstakingly, speaking each in turn,
they explained to me that this is impossible. Warm
slow scirocco rains mildew the flowers of the olive
and the vine, while the hail that comes with a
thunderstorm cuts whatever it touches. If in my
country it rained often in summer, how could any
crops be raised ?

"You understand ?" concluded Vanni.

I assented, though I had scarcely listened. I was
studying the pictures on Occhietti's boat. He had
come ashore before us at daylight, and had left the
San Pancrazio nearer the fish house than any other
of the dozen boats in line, so that I could measure
her against the tubby Taormina craft and see that
she was ten feet longer than our boats, though
smaller at that than many of her build at Catania,
where the barche mostly carry sails.

But it was her shining colors that caught my eyes
— her checker-board sides gleaming in yellow, red

3 Acqua di Giugnu
Ruvina lu munnu.

COLA PESCE 89

and green. At one side of her curved bow-post
was painted our black San Pancrazio, at the other
his companion of Taormina, San Pietro. Her short
stern-post carried San Giorgio, young and valiant;
and, backed against him, a group of souls in the
streaming flames of purgatory. Under the right
bow Agramonti led a file of crusaders; under the
left, Italian soldiers of to-day who fought in Tripoli.
At the stern a fight between lion and gladiator vied
with Judith cutting off the head of a limp and bloody
Holofernes. Rows of cherubs enlivened the free-
board on the inside.

Most fascinating of all were the San Pancrazio's
eyes. Since the days when Egyptian lords voyaged
in painted barges on the Nile, boats have had eyes
against the evil eye. At Siracusa the blue-painted
boats that cross the Porto Piccolo wear pictured
horns against witchcraft, as well as eyes with queer
looped brows. At Catania there are boats with sharp
protruding beaks like those of swordfish, and the
eyes of these are round and fishy. But the eyes of
the San Pancrazio, with winking lids and bushy
brows, were grotesquely human.

"Fine, eh ?" said Ammazzacarusi, noting my gaze.

I had scarcely answered, "Very beautiful ! Even
in the darkest night the San Pancrazio sees !" when
there came forked lightning and a rattle of hail.
Vanni was whittling pins for fastening the covers
of his traps. The sight of his knife and of his figure

9o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

in the doorway blotted out the boats and brought
back to mind a June storm of the year before.

In memory I saw myself sitting in the doorway
of the church of the Madonna della Rocca at Cas-
tiglione on the slope of Etna. Beside me there had
been a bent little man who walked slowly with a
stick. Behind us above the altar, smiled one of
Gaggini's soft, smooth Madonnas, a golden chain
falling between her hands. In front, I looked out
on gray and yellow roofs of tumbled tiles pelted with
hail. The bells of many churches were tolling.

Of a sudden there had come a blinding flash, and
the old sacristan had shrunk behind the worm-eaten,
iron-bossed door, tottering forward again after a
minute and peering into the blackness to spy out
the direction of the squall. I could see again his
shaking arm as, opening a knife, he signed with it
in air three great crosses, finishing with a furious
stab towards the wind, his lips moving, his faded
ayes agleam.

'That is a prayer ?" I asked; every "scongiuro"
goes by the name of prayer.

"Yes," he answered; "to cut the squall."

He had evaded telling me the words of the charm ;
an incantation is not taught to a passing stranger.
"Three Fathers, three Sons, and three Holy Ghosts"
was all I could coax out of him. But later, when
the weather had lifted and his rheumatic old wife
hobbled into the church and he had asked her with

COLA PESCE 91

a man's superior smile, "Wert thou frightened ?"
he turned to me with pride, saying:

"The knife cut it; you saw. I have more than
eighty-two years, I have seen many things and I
know much that I tell to no one."

"What did the knife cut?" I persisted.

"The dragon's tail," he had said concisely. Water-
spouts, whirlwinds and sometimes hail clouds are
dragons because of their tails.

"The malignant spirit," his wife had added.

4 Fraser says that the South Slavonian peasant
shoots at hail clouds in order to bring down the
hags that are in them ; but for these two old Sicilians
I fancied that the dragon itself was the evil spirit —
had some such personality as had the south wind
for the Psylli who, Herodotus says, went out to
fight it because it had dried up their reservoirs.

Thinking of these things as I watched Vanni's
knife, while we sat in the doorway of the fish house,
I asked him if he knew a 'razioni to drive away the
hail, or to cut the tail of the waterspout that so often
on these coasts brings terror to fishermen.

"No," he said. "There are such 'razioni and they
are useful, for there is peril in storm ; but I do not
know anybody who is skilled in them."

The scudding clouds dropped showers here and
there over the sea, but on our beach there fell little
water, and after no long time I was rising for the

4 "Balder the Beautiful." Vol. 1, p. 345.

92 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

homeward climb when Ammazzacarusi lifted his
brown weazened face with a friendly smile.

"If it is true," he said, "that before long Vossia
must cross the sea to her own country, this knowl-
edge would be useful to her. There is one who cuts
the tail of the dragon for us; she is Filippa 'a
Babba."

I thanked him, asked to have the lobsters brought
up for me by the long way past the octroi, and took
the shorter path.

It was not until next morning that I went to find
Filippa 'a Babba, who is Filippa the Idiot — only
by the sort of inheritance that makes Ammazza-
carusi the Boykiller. Filippa must live in the short
Via le Mura; but who wants her seeks her at the
wall above the old steep road that comes up from
Giardini past the chapel of the Madonna delle
Grazie ; a perch commanding every man, woman and
ass that climbs out of the valley and giving a broad
outlook over the sea.

It was at the wall that I found her with two or
three comari, putting a black patch into a blue apron.
In presence of the other women I did not venture
questions about whirlwinds or waterspouts, but con-
tented myself with looking at the light smoke which
rose idly from the black cone of Etna.

The rain of the day before had been heavy on
the mountain, for a long yellow tongue of roiled
water streamed from the mouth of Alcantara, and
on sea and slope the play of blues and greens was

COLA PESCE 93

as vivid as in winter. The air was so still that the
lemon gardens of Capo Schizo were doubled in the

water. .

One of the comari who sat on the gray round-
topped wall was knitting the sole of a stocking for
her husband in America. I picked up the leg which
had lain at her side.

"Why is it?" she asked, "that in your country
stockings make themselves in one piece ?"

"Why do they make themselves here in two
pieces?" I countered.

Comare Lia smiled indulgently at my ignorance.
"One knows," she said, "that an American stocking
is good for little because when the foot is worn one
must throw the whole away. With us when the sole
is gone one throws away only the sole. One unsews
it and puts in a new one."

"But who will sew extra feet into the stockings
of your husband in America?"

"Who knows?" returned Lia so soberly that I
was glad to hear the melancholy call of a peddler
"The lupine man is passing!" which broke up the

party.

In the Via le Mura there had appeared the scraggy
mule of an old peasant who comes to town with
saddle-bags full of lupines, soaked till they are
sodden to take out their bitterness, and from the
doorways nocked women with plates and bits of
paper, bargaining for one soldo's worth, or two.

Even when Filippa and I were left alone together,

94 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

we gossiped of twenty things before I had courage
to say "dragon" to the plump comfortable looking
old body whom I had associated always with clean-
ing and fine ironing. But she told me readily enough
that an old fisherman had taught her grandmother
how to cut the tail of the dragon.

"Sometimes when there is bad weather," she said,
"the water goes up and up to meet the sky, and the
sky comes down, down to meet the water, to destroy
boats and trees and houses. But if you do as I shall
tell you, the water will fall and the tempest become
calm.

"You must take a white-handled knife of the sort
used in pruning the vine shoots; wait," she said,
"I will show you."

She hurried away up the street and came back
after a minute bringing some of the dried vine cut-
tings that are used for firing and a knife so small
that I asked if my white-handled penknife would
not answer.

"Perhaps?" she said, looking at it doubtfully.

"You must sign three crosses in air," she con-
tinued, turning towards the sea, knife in one hand,
a bit of vine in the other ; and making three sweep-
ing crosses such as I had seen at Castiglione. "And
you must say:

"Whither goest thou, ugly fate?"

" 'I go to a bourne lone and far,
Where never singeth hen,
Nor shineth moon or star.'

COLA PESCE 95

"There drop the water without wrong.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost,

I cut the tail; remains the song."

As she reached the words, "I cut the tail," she
slashed the vine shoot viciously.

"You have a knife," she concluded; "do you wish
that I give you some vine shoots to take on board
ship when you go to your own country?"

CHAPTER IV

The Cleft Oak

In a farmyard near the middle of this village stands at
this time a row of pollard ashes which by the seams and
cicatrices down their sides manifestly show that in former
times they have been cleft asunder. These trees when young
and flexible were severed and held open by wedges while
ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the
apertures under a persuasion that by such a process the poor
babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the
operation was over the tree in the suffering part was plastered
with loam and carefully swathed up. If the part coalesced
and soldered together, as usually fell out where the feat was
performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured;
but where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was
supposed, would prove ineffectual.— Gilbert White's "Natural
History of Selbourne" letter 28, Jan. 1776.

For a day or two after the festa my neighbors
along the Via Bagnoli Croce talked of little but
Sant' Alfio. The greatest miracle of the day, they
agreed, had been worked for the dumb child in blue
whom we had seen weeping at the altar. In the
church she had not spoken ; but later, on the car of
the saints, she had said, "The bells of Sant' Alfio
are ringing." One or two of the people claimed
to have been near enough to hear her voice.

THE CLEFT OAK 97

"Now Vossia knows," they said with satisfaction;
"now she has seen with her own eyes."

I was standing among a group of women at the
door of Zu Saru, a bronzed fisherman who sat mend-
ing a fish-trap plaited of rushes. "Are there any
Taormina children," I inquired, "whom Sant' Alfio
has liberated?"

"But yes," said Zu Saru's wife, Lucia, who is
blue-eyed like her husband, and whose yellow hair
is sun-bleached to the color of tow. Her tone was
one of surprise. "Here is Vincenzinu of Cumari
Tidda. He was ruptured, and Sant' Alfio did the
miracle two years ago."

Vincenzinu is Gna Vanna Pipituna's grandson.
He was then a thin, silent four-year-old, brown as
a Moor, with big, sober bright eyes. Zu Saru
dropped the trap and caught him as he trotted
clumsily past, riding a stick, and pulled up his one
garment to show that his flesh was whole and
smooth.

So it happened that when I passed Gna Vanna's
door, and she called me inside to see the naked,
uneasy chicks which her two white pigeons had
hatched in their nest behind the bed, I inquired of
her about Vincenzinu. She, too, caught the solemn
youngster by his petticoat, and bribed him with
green almonds to stand still for exhibition.

It was not true, she said, that Vincenzinu owed
his liberation to Sant' Alfio. Tidda had indeed
taken him to Trecastagne not only once but two

98 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

years in succession. He had lain on the vara, and
his father had sent money from New York to buy
a two-pound wax candle. She herself had given a
white kid, the one she had called "the little flower."
But the saint did nothing. Tidda, her daughter-in-
law, had been in despair. "But I understand such
things," she concluded; "I said we must wait till
the vigilia of San Giovanni."

Gna Vanna was cleaning hens' heads to make
broth for Vincenzinu's sister, who was ill. She had
bought three heads for three soldi and three "in-
teriori" for five soldi, and was so scandalized at
the high cost of living that she wandered from the
subject.

"Bad Christians !" she ejaculated, three red combs
dangling as she shook three necks venomously. "Bad
Christians who ask so much from me ! I am a poor
unfortunate ! I have no father ; mother I have not ;
I have no one. I go barefoot, I must live. I cannot
pay so much."

The orphan planted the tip of a long, lean old
forefinger in the middle of her forehead, the gesture
that calls attention to right ways of thinking; and
her pale, keen eyes snapped as she appealed to me;
"Vossia persuades herself? Do I speak well?"

"But the vigilia of San Giovanni?" I suggested.

"San Ciuvanuzzu? Ah, si; Vincenzinu. We
passed him over the tree."

"Over the tree? You made Vincenzinu pass
over the tree?" I thought I had not heard correctly.

THE CLEFT OAK 99

"Yes, through the trunk of an oak."

"Through the trunk of an acorn tree? Did pass-
ing through an oak make Vincenzinu well ?"

"Of course!"

It is often Gna Vanna's pleasure to assure me,
when speaking of the spells and charms which she
calls prayers, "These things I know; no one else
knows them, no one at all; and I tell them only
to you. When I die no one in the world except
you will know them. Daughter I have not ; you are
my heir."

As one thought worthy to pass the old wisdom
on, I seldom express surprise at any revelation. In
the matter of the oak tree I asked, as if the answer
were a matter of course, "At midnight?"

"Yes ; down at the shore."

She told me at some length how she and her
daughter-in-law, and a party of friends had taken
the ruptured child down to the shore at Isola Bella,
where they had made a slit through a young oak,
and then under her direction had passed him three
times through the gash. "Three times they made
him enter." Then they tied up the tree and ate
and drank toasts as if it had been a baptismal festa.
Vincenzinu slept under the tree, and in the morning
he felt better. After a year they had visited the
oak and had found it healthy and grown together.
Vincenzinu's hurt had grown together also ; he was
no longer ruptured.

IOo BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"I wish you had told me at the time/' I said;
"I should have liked to go with you."

Gna Vanna promised that if ever she heard of
another child who needed to pass through the tree,
she would tell me in season; but the twenty-third
of June came and went, and I heard nothing more
about the matter. I learned by inquiry that this
old, old cure by sympathetic magic is still well known
in Eastern Sicily. My landlady gossiped to me
about a neighbor who had been subjected to it in
childhood, but who nevertheless had not been sound
enough to do his military service. The ceremony
seemed not uncommon, but I had given up hope
of ever seeing it when, a year later at the approach
of San Giovanni, Gna Vanna beckoned me mysteri-
ously inside her door one morning to announce that
only the night before her services had been spoken
for in behalf of a lad, whose parents had not been
able to take him to Trecastagne. She had already
sent a message to her cumpari, Vanni Nozzulu,
John of the olive stone, to ask if he would help her,
as he had done in the case of Vincenzinu. Would
I really like to make one of the party?

The Sicilian ritual requires that the ruptured child
be handed through the tree by a man and woman
who "make their names" on St. John's day; that is,
who are called Giovanni and Giovanna. Gna
Vanna's repute as a witch makes her an especially
appropriate Jane to act as mistress of such a
ceremony.

THE CLEFT OAK 101

I did not accept at once my invitation, though
I did not doubt Vanna's good faith. Whether she
or her compare, or the parents of the child had any
substantial faith in the ancient formula they pro-
posed to repeat, who could know? That the force
of tradition, dying but not dead, would make the
experiment seem to them perhaps useful, certainly
not harmful, was beyond question. I held acceptance
in reserve only to make sure that nothing should be
added to the function or taken away from it be-
cause of the expected presence of an outsider.

From day to day Gna Vanna chatted of the
preparations. This time they were going into the
hills, not down to the shore. Petru Barbarussa,
the boy's father, had already found a likely tree. It
would be moonlight ; they would take bread, cheese
and fish, and make a supper after the ceremony.
Cumpari Vanni would bring wine. In the late after-
noon of the twenty-third she reported that every-
thing was ready, except the supper ; she would like
to give that herself ; "but I am scarce" she concluded
with a shrewd eye-glance. It was then that I agreed
to come and to supplement her scarceness of money,
if she would buy for me the peas, beans, nuts and
seeds necessary to complete the festa.

Peter of the Red Beard is a fisherman. His
Pippinu I had known from the child's babyhood.
Pippinu was at this time a white, sickly sprout of
a six-year-old, red-headed, pale-eyed, ill-fed; yet
withal an ingratiating little soul. When I stopped

io2 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

hesitatingly at his door at nine o'clock that evening
his shy grin of welcome made me even more
ashamed than I had expected to be of gratifying
curiosity at the expense of such a weakly mite of
humanity.

Pippinu lives at the foot of the broad "ladder"
that goes up from a confusion of narrow ways to
the street known of all tourists, the Via Teatro
Greco. His is the usual house of one room, its
smoky wall lighted only from the doorway, its floor
of broken bricks littered with water jars, brambles
for the fire, confused heaps of nets and dingy house-
hold utensils. Gna Vanna had not yet come, and
in the dim interior Barbarussa, a gaunt man of forty
with a red stubble beard, barefooted, wearing cotton
shirt and trousers, was preparing lanterns, ropes
and the like for our excursion.

Donna Catina, Pippinu's mother, was putting
down children for the night ; two boys on one side
of the room, two girls on the other, the pallets
partly screened by ragged sacking. The big mar-
riage bed stood as usual in an alcove at the back,
cut of! by worn red curtains.

There was not much other furniture: Two small
tables, a chest, chairs, a washtrough full of soapy
water, a rack holding bottles and dishes, prints of
the Madonna and saints, family clothing.

Donna Catina was pretty once; she might be
pretty now, if her straggling hair were ever combed
and her untidy dress were ever buttoned at the

THE CLEFT OAK 103

throat. She is not yet thirty, but her oval face is
thin and faded, and her smile flickers anxiously.
While we waited, she showed me by the light of an
ill-smelling lamp (he two treasures of the household,
a "snapshot" of 'her husband's first wife taken by
some tourist, and a wax image of the baby Christ,
framed in a wooden box with a glass front.

At last Cumpari Vanni appeared, a rugged con-
tadino, better-nourished than the others. His straw
hat was so huge it interfered with the big basket he
carried on his shoulder. Behind him came Gna
Vanna, limping with a touch of rheumatism, and
Pippinu's aunt, Donna Ciccia, whose good brown
face, framed in its yellow kerchief, beamed in an-
ticipation of the adventure.

When our party of seven started at ten o'clock,
the moon was not up ; and, once outside the village,
we lighted two square lanterns not bigger than water
glasses. Our way took us past the Messina gate
and then down beyond the Campo Santo into a
rough path that dips into a fold of the hills, a short-
cut to the shore north of Taormina. It was a black
descent; the circle of mountains almost cut out the
sky. There was not a breath of air. The hot earth
exhaled an aromatic smell of pennyroyal.

The two men walked ahead, talking in low tones
of the scarcity of fish, of the drought, of the light
wheat crop. Donna Catina came behind them with
Pippinu clinging mute and frightened to her hand.
Next came Donna Ciccia with the second lantern,

■-.-.,

it now and then to discavtr & sprig of the
tall-gtowing shrah; ~i<or the presepk*," she said

V: • • . v ■.-: s v: ::■;. .vv. :.'■■■:•:. ::: :::•: f. c ; : S. ■-.
;• ;■-.:■ - ;■:;-- -.-? : ;>.':-. :.: Jr -.<: r.-..V5

:■:;:, \ ;.::.■;. £"-.v>.x-i r." .-'-.". c " /..,:. /\C. "V.% '.;c

bents enoqgh and too ranch* I cannot walk. I

;.-/-.•:-;: <.'.:•;: V ':•.;-;: '.-/.> cv re •';:" :. e ±c '.:■:
of eaflxr^, To-4ay I cooked myself one soido's

;: f;W:-.rr: .-": >-'- " > ■■ -"':'' ■'" '■ r\;::-.:-^
I want to die, for I cannot snffifer anymore.9*
5-: •:;--..::;•; :.:: Lvr.-C:~: :: :•: ".: :::: :, r.-> :;,ir
:-;.: r : .- :o; .; /^ ;..- ;v.:.~ :.;.".'. •; i: • ewe ~. cr
titan w«nt on, *Tbey call me lame, I who, V:
trows, hare always walked betier man any of
;.-;;"- A-; 5.':-.; fr:-:o-:-;. ;.:: >." ^c:rrci.> :j:..l: --.::;
iifnr-"Ti - >::r-: ~.r '•■'.'-"■ ':.•:.:

- : ir; rpei : '■■: : - :
i :..C i -:•'..: :-: Iff: :.".--; :./.:.:: ;,:- V;-.-.

:■■::. ±t ::r.e: re: :r. :
I..
rr.
:; irrrr.: rr.: cr :,-'.■:■:. s :.-".:-:

no: i-pi: ;."; ;..:: :;: ; .:; :\...

Tr. e rrer :i- "->:*:. rprr: ' ' :

:;r:ir:- .-. 5c: :•;•;.;-. ; [ rorre-i
:-.f.r>tl: ir«i lornr;, J;:;, rrr

THE CLE I ios

her of the Rock, deliver nna Catina

hed something in the bosom of her dress.
( ter a long wait the men came back. 7 1
had found a better oak, but high on a cliff side
:eep that without Gna Vanna's help I should
have been slow in reaching : y leg hurts," she

mourned, as she dragged me up the and

crumbly steep. The: ches

of a wiry grass on which the feet slipped, and which
cut the hands.

The new oaklet stood on a I :..\: with

a few dwarf fkhi dTndia and wild plum tree

at one side a recently planted baby olive. It

may have been four feet tall, a straight i ban

-ying at \ v o waving br ".all,

close-gr- modi indented leaves of the S:::lian

oak. We sat down beside it.

It was not yet half-p; : eleven; nothing could
be done until midnight. To save oil for our return
we put out the lanterns, and stuck a candle atop
of a stone under th : >e dark gl

rustled without wind as if it shivered before coming
pain.

Pippinu went to sleep in his mother's arms. The
yellow point of candle flame made blacker the black
outlines of Monte Ziretto and Monte Veneretta that

ned silent on the opposite side of the ra-
There was no sound but the sleepy "Frisci, friszi,
frisci" of a belated cicala.

''What does the cicaledda ray?" I asked.

io6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"I am wrong, I die/' answered Donna Ciccia; and
she told us the tale of the idle cicala and the in-
dustrious ant, as she had heard it from her elders;
as they heard it from their "ancients"; for on the
lips of the South some of the old Greek tales have
never died.

The silence that fell again was broken by the hoot
of the cucca. "Some one must die," shuddered
Donna Catina.

"The cicaledda," suggested Vanni.

Gna Vanna settled her bad leg more comfortably,
announcing, "When there passes the pain in my leg,
I shall carry two candles to the dear Madonna of
the Chain."

She told us again how Vincenzinu, her grandson,
had passed "over the little oak" and how much
better he had felt the next morning. Vincenzinu's
father, Turiddu, who had made already two voyages
to New York, was about to sail again. "He says,"
she continued, "that they call our cucuzzi 'squashes' ;
is it true, Vossia ?"

I praised Turiddu's English, and confirmed his
tales of "treni in aria" and "treni suttu terra" —
elevated and subway trains. Turiddu had told his
mother that in America one does not enjoy life,
for there is no music in the piazza on Sunday. The
air, too, is not so fine as in Sicily, and the fish have
not the same good taste.

"That would be true," said Barbarussa, "for even
the fish taken at Catania, one hour from here, have

THE CLEFT OAK 107

not the same good taste as the fish of our own sea
of Taormina."

A few minutes before twelve by Cumpari Vanni's
watch Gna Vanna gave the signal for us to sign
ourselves with the cross. Then the party repeated
in unison three paternosters, three aves and three
gloria patris.

When these were finished Cumpari Vanni took
the little tree by its two poor leafy branches, and
slowly and dexterously split it with his hands. To
use a knife, Gna Vanna said, would be unlucky.
When he had opened it two-thirds of the way to
the ground, he put one side of the top into my hands
and the other side into Barbarussa's. By traditional
usage this made me cumari — co-mother — with the
parents of Pippinu. We stood North and South
of the oak.

Pippinu began to whine as his mother delivered
him, cold and sleepy, to Gna Vanna, who unbuttoned
and pulled off his short patched breeches. Custom
prescribes that the child be naked; but Pippinu's
screams became so shrill, and his thin, dusty legs
waved so protestingly that she left him his shirt
and cuddled him, cold, sleepy and afraid, in her
old arms, promising sweets to eat in the morning.
She had taken off her white headkerchief, and the
yellow hoops of her earrings gleamed in the flicker-
ing candle light that brought nose and chin gro-
tesquely close together. She would have looked a
witch, if she had not looked a good grandmother.

io8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

The split in the tree ran East and West. When
Pippinu's sobs had subsided into disconsolate little
chokes, Cumari Vanni and Cumpari Vanni placed
themselves in front of it and behind, making a cross
with Barbarussa and me. Then Vanna, holding out
the boy, began:

"Cumpari Vanni !"

He answered, "Cumari Vanna !"

"Cumpari Vanni!"

"Cumari Vanna, What do you wish?"

Vanna replied:

5Pigghia stu figghiu
E lu passa cca banna;
A nomu di Sanciuvanni,
Lu dugnu ruttu, dammilu sanu.

At the word "pigghia" Gna Vanna passed Pip-
pinu feet first across the split betwen the two halves
of the tree into the hands of Vanni, who, when he
had received him, began in his turn, "Cumari
Vanna!" They repeated the formula until Pippinu
had passed from one to the other through the tree
three times. There was no attempt to be impressive
and nothing like jesting. They made a plain work-
ing conversation.

When Vanna had received the child back for the
last time, she set him on his feet, still frightened

5 Take this child and pass him back to me again ; In the
name of San Giovanni, I give him you broken, give him me
sound.

The Little Oak Tree

THE CLEFT OAK 109

and shivering, a wee pathetic smile dawning on his
face. Holding him at her side, her hands on his
shoulders, she finished her incantation :

Praised and thanked be the most holy Sacrament, the great
Mother of God, Mary, and all the (heavenly) company. San
Giovanni, in the name of Jesus close this flesh. In the
name of Jesus, blessed San Giovanni, close this hurt; and
may Pippinu suffer nothing more. Take away all the peril
and the evil suggestion, dear good San Giovanni. Praised
and thanked be the most holy Sacrament, the great Mother
of God, Mary and all the heavenly company!

A little dazed, the child wavered across to his
mother, who dressed him while Cumpari Vanni
bound up the tree, winding the new rope that Bar-
barussa had provided in a continuous coil to cover
the entire length of the slit, while he and Vanna
repeated together: "As this tree closes, so may
Pippinu's rupture close."

If the tree healed within a year, Vanna said,
Pippinu would heal; if not, Pippinu would not get
well.

Vanna does not know how passage through the
tree was to help Pippinu. To her, Gaidoz, whose
monograph aims to prove the root idea to be a shift-
ing of trouble from Pippinu to the tree ; or Frazer,
who thinks that an escaping Pippinu leaves a pur-
suing malady caught in the cleft; or Baring Gould,
who sees a new Pippinu reborn free of old ills,
would be equally meaningless. She does not need
to speculate about the matter; she has inherited a

no BY-PATHS IN SICILY

practice that comes down to her perhaps from the
elder Cato, who advised that a green split reed be
tied to a dislocated limb during the recitation of a
spell, the two then being tied together to heal in
sympathetic harmony.

Vanna's invocation is a prayer. People call her
a witch, but they are wrong, since she works only
"things of God." Many a time she has said to me,
"It is always for good and never for ill. Release
(from evil) yes; bind, never! Am I a Christian,
or am I not ?"

If the priests do not approve of certain practices,
it is because the priests have not the devotion. Her
thought does not separate religion and magic; each
is an appeal to superior powers; but in daily life,
since the priests refuse to make appeals of various
necessary sorts, wise people must make them, or
cause them to be made, for themselves.

After rendering first aid to the oak, we slipped
and slid down the hillside to the path, where under
the walnut tree we laid out the baptismal supper.
Barbarussa had brought three big round brown
loaves of bread, a few early figs and a plate of little
cold fried fish, and Cumpari Vanni had added a
small form of sheep's milk, cheese and two bottles
of wine. Vanni cut the bread with his evil-looking
knife. We hung our lanterns to the thorn bushes
and ate with satisfaction. Gna Vanna had not for-
gotten the feast.

It was time for the moon to be up ; this we knew

THE CLEFT OAK in

by a faint light above the mountain tops; but she
never gave a real look into our cup among the hills.
My new honor as godmother gave me the first easy
time-worn toast :

6 Good and fine is this wine ;
A toast to Pippinu, this is mine.

Pippinu's father followed with the second:

Good as bread is this wine;
Vanni made it from his vine.

I have yet to see the Sicilian who could not
rhyme toasts as long as breath held out.

Dawn was in the sky before we reached home.
As we climbed out of the gorge Donna Catina
stopped to touch the ground, and then kissed her
fingers, saying, "I kiss the earth ; God save us from
traveling again this fearsome road." She opened
the bosom of her dress to show me, stitched into her
clothing, the flat thin gold cross she had worn as
protection against the evil spirits that infest the
night.

"You and I saw the botta, Vossia," said Vanna,
shaking her wise old head reassuringly ; "that toad
may have been a 'donna di fora/ one of the little
people.' '

Within a few days I left Sicily, and it was more
than a year before I saw Pippinu again. Time had

6 Chistu vinu e beddu e finu,
Facciu brindisi a Pippinu.

ii2 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

not changed the house at the foot of the great
scalinata, except that, hung to the side of the bed
in the alcove, was now a cradle, made of a piece
of sacking that swung by ropes from the bedframe.

Donna Catina was not at home. Barbarussa said
she had gone "To make the day's expenses (for
provisions )." More gaunt and good-humored than
ever, he was sweeping the floor. "I am making the
cleaning of the house,,, he added, explaining an
occupation not unusual among the fishermen. .

After a few minutes Catina appeared carrying in
her arms the tenant of the cradle, ten-months-old
Giovanninu, named for the saint we had invoked
when his brother passed over the tree. "Four teeth
he has," she said proudly, as soon as we had ex-
changed greetings, prying open the youngster's
mouth to show me his four new teeth. "He creeps,
and he can stand alone."

She coaxed him to smile, smoothing his red hair,
tapping his plump rosy cheeks. He was indeed a
fine boy compared with his thin hungry-looking
sisters, grown too large to be nourished with their
mother's milk.

"But where is Pippinu?" I asked finally.

"At the cobbler's," said the little girls in chorus,
darting from the house to fetch him.

My godson, being now seven years old, had be-
come one of the men of the household. He was
apprenticed to a cobbler, who, being cumpari with
Barbarussa, asked no fee, and sometime would pay

THE CLEFT OAK 113

wages. Meantime he did not give food, as seemed
obvious when Pippinu sidled bashfully into the
room, white and frail as always. •

While the children were gone Catina had been
rummaging in the big wooden chest to find the
certificate of Pippinu's marks in the Taormina
school. He had finished the second elementary class,
and pointed out with small leather-stained fingers
how well he had done in reading and writing.
Would he ever go to school again? Perhaps; they
hoped he might go one more year.

That afternoon Pippinu's aunt went with me to
inspect the tree. It was not the first excursion
Donna Ciccia and I had made together, and I do not
know a better companion. Her brown, leathery
face and sun-strained eyes, her brows arched in a
perpetual question, bear witness that life has not
handled her gently ; but to every buffet she opposes
a jest. I have never seen her wear shoes, though
she saved money for months to buy a pair for mass
on Sundays. She says the cobbler — he to whom
Pippinu is apprenticed — made them too tight; per-
haps her good muscular feet rebelled at confinement.
Even for this visit of ceremony, she left them in
her chest, that family hold-all.

It was late July. For that very afternoon Hesiod
might have written of the summer resting time,
"When the artichoke flowers, and the tuneful
cicala, perched on a tree, pours forth a shrill song
ofttimes from under his wings." The white smoke

ii4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

of Etna rose straight and slow into a white and
cloudless sky. The sea was blue-white. There was
a bluish haze over all the world. It was a day of
powerful heat, when the stones baked under foot,
and the long walls scorched the hand. Even in the
rock shade of the fold among the hills the leaves
of the almond trees were turning yellow before the
fruit had ripened, and the thick fleshy leaves of the
fichi dTndia were drooping. •

We found the little tree still wound tightly. It
showed a long, dark scar well closed. Its crown
of leaves was thick and vigorous. It had grown
a trifle, was more than four feet tall. It held its
head up courageously in face of the scorched moun-
tains opposite, which showed their bleakest summer
aspect. The drought for a year had been extreme.
Again there was nothing green under foot; the air
was heavy with the pungent smell of pennyroyal.

We rested in the warm silence. The air was so
still we might have thought Pan had not yet waked
from his siesta. Donna Ciccia pulled her knitting
work out of the pockets of her apron, and I read
to her the words of the goatherd in Theocritus:
"We may not pipe in the noontide; 't is Pan we
dread, who truly at this hour rests weary from the
chase.,,

By and by Donna Ciccia dropped her needles. "I
used to come here when I was a girl,'' she said,
"to pick up wood. Nowadays my Christian has a

THE CLEFT OAK 115

vote, but they have not left us any place to pick
up wood."

Again for a long time we said nothing. In one
of her pockets she had brought green almonds; with
her strong teeth she cracked them easily. It was
nearly five o'clock, and there was a faint air stirring,
when we rose to begin the homeward road. We
knew the hour because on the path below fishermen
were going down to the sea. •

'The tree has come good, it is healed,,, said
Donna Ciccia. We did not take off the cord, lest
Pippinu should take off his bandage. It has been
agreed that while the tree wore a truss Pippinu
should wear one also. "It has come good/' she
repeated ; "but as to Pippinu one does not yet know."

But perhaps when he is older, a little surgery may
help us find out about Pippinu.

CHAPTER V
The Hairy Hand

Fe! Fi! Fo! Fum!

I smell the blood of an Englishman !

Be he 'live or be he dead,

I'll grind his bones to make my bread 1

The moon was coming up large and round over
the shoulder of Monte Tauro. The air was heavy
with the scent of jasmine. The summer evening

was peaceful and still. "If the war lasts " said

the Signora L , drawing forward a chair for

me in the doorway of her shop. She did not finish
the sentence, but I knew she was thinking, "there
will be no tourists next winter, and no work."

Donna Peppina's Mazza, trudging homeward
from vespers, paused a minute to say, "I have taken
the holy benediction !" Her brown, wrinkled face
expressed well-considered self-satisfaction. "But —
what is that? Thunder?"

"Cannon," answered the Signora.

It was that August evening when the German
ships, Breslau and Goeben, leaving the port of Mes-
sina, ran the gauntlet of the French and British
fleets. Not two hours earlier we had watched the
silent passage, one by one, of dark, low war-vessels.

116

THE HAIRY HAND 117

"A verra?" pursued Donna Peppina. "Is it the
war? It can't last long." But the tone was not
as cheerful as the words, and the little bent figure,
muffled in its black shawl, hurried uneasily away.

A neighbor's child sat down at our feet, stuffing
her fingers into her ears, as from the quiet, moon-
lighted water there came another sullen boom,
"Sarina," I suggested, "ask the Signora to tell us a

story."

The Signora smiled indulgently. In those tragic
days we whiled away with stories many an evening.
She thought a minute, following with her eyes a
man who was hurrying supperward, carrying
cracked ice on a folded kerchief. Then she began,
"When I was a little girl in Caltagirone and my
grandmother used to tell me stories, the one I liked
best of all was The Hairy Hand/ "

"Once upon a time there was a poor man who
had four daughters. Every morning he went into
the country to gather soup greens to sell. When
summer came and the great sun burnt the country
bare, the poor man's children must have died of
hunger, had not the neighbors given them sometimes
a glass of wine, sometimes a little oil, sometimes a
bit of bread.

"One day when the poor father had found noth-
ing at all to put into his shoulder bags except a
few wild blackberries, he saw in the field on the
other side of a hedge of fichi dTndia a fine plant of
wild fennel. He scrambled through the thorny

n8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

hedge, but no sooner had he reached out his hand
to gather the most beautiful plant than he heard,
'Cing-a-li ! Cling-a-li ! Cing-a-li !' a sound as of some-
thing dropping. He looked with all his eyes, but
could see nothing. He pulled again, and again he
heard, 'Cing-a-li! Cling-a-li! Cing-a-li!' as if a little
bell were ringing or money dropping. He looked
again, but could find nothing. The third time he
pulled the plant up by the roots, and he saw a hole
which grew and grew until it became the mouth
of a great cave and out of the cave there came a
giant fierce and monstrous. He was a wicked
dragon, who killed every person that passed and
ate the flesh. If he was not hungry, he would cut
off head and hands and throw the body into a great
locked room.

"At first the dragon did not see the poor father.
He stood in the mouth of the cave and said:

What a good smell of Christian meat !
If it I see, I'll swallow it neat!

"The poor father said, 'Give me your blessing,
your Excellency.'

"Then the dragon said, 'Come in, good man; sit
down.'

"The poor father went into the cave and looked
about. He saw rich furniture and bags of money.
'Eat,' said the dragon, 'if you are hungry; eat as
much as you like' ; and he set out bread, wine, pasta,
cheese and fish.

THE HAIRY HAND n9

"When the poor man had eaten, the dragon asked,
'Where do you come from, good man?'

'The man said he had been gathering minestra
to support his family.

" 'Are you single or married ?'

" 'I have four daughters/ replied the poor father.

" Tour daughters !' said the dragon. 'I have no-
body; I live alone/ He asked the poor father to
give him a daughter to be his wife, promising that
she should have plenty to eat and fine clothes to
wear, and he gave him a fistful of gold.

"The poor father promised to bring his eldest
daughter next day, then he said, 'I salute you; I
kiss your Excellency's hand' ; and he went home.

"That night he showed his four daughters the
money. 'Eat/ he said; 'eat, my children, if you are
hungry; eat as much as you like/ He told his
eldest daughter that a prince had asked for her hand
in marriage, and next morning he took her with
him to the cave. The drau received him kindly
and gave the poor father another fistful of gold.

"When the man had gone home the dragon gave
the girl the keys of all the rooms in the cave, telling
her she was mistress of the place to do what she
pleased, except that one door she must not unlock;
he pointed towards the great dark room where he
kept the bodies of the men he had slain. Then he
called, 'Hairy Hand!'

" 'What do you want?' replied a voice, and there
appeared a great hairy hand. It was black and

120 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

knotted, and its fingers were like the claws of ' "

The Signora hesitated. Sarina gulped with sus-
pense. She no longer heard the sullen booming
from the sea.

"Like the claws of the one that dances," continued
the Signora finally; "the claws of a bear."

" 'Do you see the hairy hand?* asked the dragon.
'You have to eat it. If you eat it, you shall be
my wife; if you don't eat it, woe to you! I shall
cut off your head. Will you eat it ?'

" 'Yes, I will eat it/ said the eldest daughter.

" T give you three days/ said the drau, and he
went away. The dragon had vast estates; he was
always busy traveling through his properties.

"When she was alone, the eldest daughter looked
at the hairy hand. 'How ugly it is!' she said to
herself ; T am afraid ; this thing I cannot eat.' She
hid it in a big chest, and went about the work of
the house. On the third day sl|e took flour and
made home-made macaroni. She killed a hen and
made a stew. When the drau came home the table
was set, and there were roasted onions hot from
the bread oven.

"'Have you eaten the Hairy Hand?' he de-
manded.

" 'Yes, I ate it/ she answered.

" 'It seems to me you did not eat it/ he said ; and
he called 'Hairy Hand !'

" 'A-u-u ! What do you want ?' replied a voice.

u 'Where are you ?' asked the dragon.

THE HAIRY HAND 121

" 'In the big chest/ replied the Hand.

"So the dragon knew that the girl had not eaten
it, and he said, 'Woe to you ! I cut off your head P
And he cut it off and threw her into the great locked
room.

"Now when the poor father had spent all the
money the dragon had given him he came again to
the cave, and inquired for his daughter. Said the
dragon, 'She is having a good time; she is with
my sister who thinks her pretty/

"The dragon complained that he v/as again all
alone, and asked the poor father to bring another
daughter. 'Eat/ he said; 'if you are hungry, eat
as much as you like/ And again he set out food
and brought a fistful of gold.

"Next day the father brought his second daughter,
and the dragon said to her, as he had to the first,
that she was mistress of everything in the cave ex-
cept the great locked room. He showed her the
hairy hand, and told her she should be his wife
if she ate it. 'If not, woe to you!' He gave her
three days and went away.

"The second daughter looked at the hairy hand,
and said to herself, 'This thing I cannot eat/ and
she threw it into a cask of wine.

"When the drau came home she had done up all
the work of the house and the pasta with tomato
sauce was on the table.

" 'Well ?' he demanded ; 'the Hand ? Have you
eaten it?'

122 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"'Yes,' she said; 1 ate it/

" 'I don't believe you ate it/ answered the drau,
and he called, 'Hairy Hand !'

" 'A-u! What do you want?'

" 'Where are you?'

" 'In the wine cask/

"So the dragon saw that the second daughter had
not eaten the hairy hand, and he cut off her head
and put her with her sister.

"When the poor father was again out of money
and came back to the cave to inquire for his two
daughters, the dragon said the second girl was visit-
ing his brother. He was alone, quite alone, and the
father must bring yet a third daughter. The poor man
did as he was told, and to the third girl everything
happened much as to her sisters. She hid the hairy
hand in the oven, and the dragon cut off her head.
Where the father came back to ask after his three
children, the drau said the third daughter was with
his sister-in-law. The poor man agreed for another
fistful of gold to bring his fourth daughter, but
he warned the dragon not to send her to any of his
relatives, because she was the very last.

"Now the youngest daughter was more clever
than the others. She received the order not to
meddle with the door of the locked room, and she
promised to eat the hairy hand. But as soon as
the dragon had given her three days' respite and
had gone away, she unlocked the forbidden door,
and found the bodies of her three sisters and of

THE HAIRY HAND 123

all the other murdered people. She was frightened,
and she thought, 'He will kill me, too; I am as good
as dead.'

"On the third day when it was time for the
dragon to come home, instead of setting the table,
she took a piece of cloth and made a pocket and
sewed the hairy hand inside."

The Signora folded a corner of her apron to
show Sarina just how the youngest daughter had
made a bag to hold the hairy hand. Then she
went on:

"The youngest daughter tied the bag across her
stomach with a rag and went to bed. When the
dragon found her groaning, he asked, 'What ails
you?'

"She complained : T don't feel well.'

" 'Did you eat the hairy hand ?'

" 'Yes ; I have eaten it.'

" 'Hairy Hand !' called the drau.

"'What do you want?'

"'Where are you?'

" 'At the mistress' stomach.'

" 'Va be,' said the drau; 'Since you have eaten it
you shall be my wife.'

"When the dragon saw that the youngest daughter
was ill, he went away, and she got up at once and
went back to the forbidden room. This time she
heard a sound as of someone trying to breathe.

" 'U-h, a-u-h, uh, a-u-h!' It was like this," said
the Signora, moaning as if hardly alive.

124 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"In the dark corner of the room the youngest
daughter found a man in an iron cage. He was
dying of hunger. 'Help me/ he wailed; 'for I am
the son of the king.'

"The youngest daughter killed a pigeon and made
broth. She put a spoon to the bars and fed the
man, who lifted his head and began to move his
hands Then she minced the flesh of the pigeon
fine like meal, and fed that to him. By and by he
said, 'I feel much better/ He told her to send for
a shepherd with a mule.

" 'But the dragon/ she objected.

" 'He is gone away/

"When the herdsman came, he filed the bars of
the cage with a piece of iron, and the king's son
and the youngest daughter climbed into the mule's
saddle-bags, one on each side. The shepherd stuffed
the bags with wool, for it was the time of the
shearing of the sheep, and rode away towards the
palace of the king.

"They had not gone far when they met the
dragon, who asked, 'What have you got in those
bags ?'

" 'Wool/ said the herdsman.

"The drau thrust his sword into the saddle-bags,
and looked at its point. There was no blood on it,
nothing but a bit of wool. So the drau believed
the shepherd was telling the truth. He struck the
mule with the flat of his sword and said, 'Get on

THE HAIRY HAND 125

with you?' and off went the mule to the king's
palace.

"Now the king's son had been gone two years,
and when he reached home there was great rejoic-
ing. He kissed his father's hand and said, 'Your
majesty, bless me. Father, grant me a wish; give
me this girl for my wife.'

"Now the youngest daughter had left at the
window of her room in the cave a figure dressed
in her clothing, so that the dragon might think her
at home and attend to his mule before coming in-
doors. The hairy hand she had thrown into the
rubbish heap. When the dragon saw the doll at the
window he called, 'What ails you? Why don't
you speak to me? Come down.' Then as the figure
did not move, he came upstairs and discovered the
trick.

" 'Hairy Hand !' he called. 'Where are you ?'

" Tn the rubbish.'

" Then the mistress didn't eat you?'

" 'She didn't eat me.'

" 'Then why did you say she did eat you ?'

" T said I was at the mistress' stomach, and for-
got to say whether I was inside or out.'

" 'Wliere is the mistress ?' .

" 'Fled with the son of the king.'

"Even in the king's palace the youngest daughter
feared the dragon and she told the servant who kept
the door to pretend to be deaf in case he came. The
dragon did come, and to all his questions the old

i26 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

woman answered, 'You want onions and beans?
Down yon they sell them' ; and she pointed to a shop
down the street."

But of course the dragon got into the palace,
and hid himself inside an enchanted clock to work
mischief; and equally of course he was killed by
the king's son, and the three older sisters were
brought to life, and everybody lived happy ever
afterward.

Sarina drew a long breath of satisfaction when
the tale was finished, and begged for another.

"Enough," said the Signora; "it's time for you
to go to bed." But in the end she was coaxed to
tell us about a dragon's wife, a "mammadrava."
A little wind stirred Sarina's short light hair. She
leaned her head against the door jamb, her eyes
fixed blissfully on the Signora's face. She had for-
gotten the cannon.

"They tell and they retell," began the Signora;
"that once upon a time there was a woman who
went to the fountain to wash. There came by a
'mammadrava' who said:

"'What a beautiful smell of Christian meat!
If it I see, I'll swallow it neat!'

"There is nothing that tastes so good to a dragon
or a she-dragon as the flesh of us Christians.
" 'Spare me !' cried the woman.
"The 'mammadrava' spared the woman because

THE HAIRY HAND 127

she was with child, and said, 'I'll eat what you have
within you when you have brought it forth.'

"The woman gave birth to a beautiful daughter,
but she did not give her child to the 'mammadrava.'
One day the she-dragon saw the little girl passing
and called to her: Tretty child, tell your motEer
that I want what she promised me.'

"The child told her mother, T saw the "mamma-
drava," and she said, "I want what your mother
promised me." '

"The mother replied, Tell the "mammadrava,"
"Take it where you see it."

"When the little girl had given the message the
'mammadrava' said, 'Come here, my child; I have
some sweets for you.'

"The little girl was afraid; for you must know
that a dragon does not talk as do we other Chris-
tians; they drawl in a terrifying way through the
nose."

The Signora bent towards Sarina, giving to every
word a harsh nasal twang.

"The 'mammadrava' took the child to her house
and put her into the 'cannizzu' to fatten until she
should be big and tender enough to eat. (In a
Sicilian house a tall cylinder of woven cane is an
ordinary receptacle for grain or beans. It has a
small hole near the floor, stopped commonly with
rags.) She fed the little girl with pasta, fish and
sweets, giving her every day as much as she could

128 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

eat. After a time she said one morning, 'Stick out
a finger.'

"The child poked a finger through the hole.

" 'You are still too little to eat/ said the 'mamma-
drava/ and every day she gave her more pasta and
more fish and more sweets. As the child grew she
became clever; and she thought, 'If she sees that
I am now good and big, she will eat me.' So she
killed a rat and cut off its tail, and the next time
the 'mammadrava' said, Tut out a finger/ instead
of a finger she poked out the rat's tail.

"The 'mammadrava' was cross and hungry, for
it was a long time since she had tasted Christian
flesh. She fed the girl as much as she could eat,
but always when she asked to see a finger the child
put out the rat's tail. At last when the girl was
eighteen years old she thought, 'Now that I am
really good and big I shall soon be strong enough
to get the better of the old she-dragon/ And one
day instead of the rat's tail she put out her flesh-
and-blood finger.

"At sight of it the 'mammadrava's' mouth
watered. She took the girl out of the 'cannizzu'
and looked at her. 'How fine and fat you are!'
she exclaimed, licking her lips. 'We'll make a f esta
to-day because you have come out.' She built a
fire in the oven, for she meant to roast the girl
as a dinner for herself and her husband, the dragon.
When she thought the oven must be hot enough

THE HAIRY HAND 129

she said, 'Go, look into the oven and see if it is
ready/

"But the girl answered, 'I don't know anything
about the oven; I've lived all my life inside the
'cannizzu.' Go you; I'll set the table.'

"When the 'mammadrava' stooped to take away
the balata (the sheet of iron that closed the mouth
of an oven) the girl took her by the feet and threw
her inside and put the balata in position. Then she
set the table and brought out wine.

"Towards Ave Maria the dragon came home.
'Where is my wife?' he asked.

" 'She has gone to market. She is making a festa
to-day because I am good and big and have come
out of the 'cannizzu.' She is roasting a fine sheep.
Do you want to see V

"The girl opened the oven and the dragon sniffed
the roasting meat. 'Would you like to taste a little
bit now ?' she suggested.

"The dragon was greedy. 'Yes/ he said; 'my
wife has such an appetite she'll eat it all and I
shan't get a bite. I'll eat a leg/

"The girl gave him as much as he wanted of the
flesh of the 'mammadrava/ When he had drunk
so much wine that he was sleepy, she took all the
goods that God had given the house, and ran away
home. .

"Now you must surely go to bed," said the
Signora to Sarina.

The Corso was deserted. The men who through-

i3o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

out the evening had been standing in the Piazza
Sant' Agostino, looking out over the sea, by twos
and threes had gone home. The houses were dark
and quiet.

Sarina looked across the narrow way to a shop
where a light still burned. "My sister," she said,
"has not finished ironing. Just another little short
one. Tell us about the thirteen robbers.,,

"But you know it," replied the Signora.

"I don't," I suggested.

"Once upon a time," recommenced the Signora
patiently, "there was a mother who had two beauti-
ful daughters. One day she was obliged to go a
long way from home to bleach her flax. She askeci
an old woman to sleep in the house with her daugh-
ters that night, and to let no one in for fear of
robbers. 'Lock the door as soon as it is dark/
she said, 'and hang the key on the nail.'

"The old woman agreed, but as soon as the
mother had gone, she sought out the chief of a
robber band; and told him that if he would knock
at the door at midnight, he might get possession of
everything in the house. The robber chief gave
the old woman a purse of silver, and at midnight
precisely he rapped at the door. The old woman
snored as if she were fast asleep.

" 'Open, I am your mother/ called the master
thief.

"The older daughter would have opened, but the
younger was more clever. She said, 'Mother would

THE HAIRY HAND 131

never come home at this hour.' So the two beautiful
girls climbed up into the hay-loft and pulled up the
ladder.

'There were thirteen of the robbers, and they
broke down the door. But the younger daughter
threw blocks of rock salt on their heads until she
had killed twelve. Only the robber chief remained
alive, and to avoid discovery he carried away one
at a time the bodies of all his men.

"When the mother came home next day the old
woman pretended to have slept soundly all night
and to have heard nothing. The robber chief was
determined to avenge himself, so he asked the
mother to give him her younger daughter in mar-
riage. The clever girl knew that it was the head
robber who sought her, and guessed that he meant
to kill her ; but she said yes, and they were married.
On the day of the wedding she made a figure as
large as herself, dressed it in her own clothes and
put it into the bed. Then she hid underneath.

"When the head robber came into the room and
saw the dummy, he thrust his dagger through and
through it, shouting, Thus do I take vengeance for
the death of my brave lads ! Thus do I drink the
blood of the murderess!' And he drank of the
liquid that ran from the pupa. No sooner had he
done so than he started to his feet, crying, 'How
sweet is my wife's blood ! I repent me that I have
killed her! I will kill myself !'

"He began to sob and groan, and he would have

i32 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

thrust the knife into his own heart; but the younger
daughter jumped from her hiding place and said:

7 " 'A sugar doll has bled at your knife
And you and I are husband and wife.' "

"Is that the end?" asked Sarina. "Did they make
peace ?"

"Yes," said the Signora; "they made peace. And
when my grandmother told me that story she used
to say,

8 " 'Now husband and wife are rich and contended,
But we poor folks are sadly stinted.'"

Sarina's sister had finished ironing and came to
fetch her. It had been a long hot day for the
laundress, and while she rested with us in the even-
ing air, she, too, begged for a story. The Signora
tried to tell us about The Beauty of the Seven
Veils; but she couldn't remember it, and gave us
instead, The Enchanted Mirror/

"Once upon a time a wicked woman had a beauti-
full step-daughter whom she beat and kept in rags.
One day she asked an enchanted mirror whether
the girl was fortunate or unfortunate.

"Fortunate," answered the enchanted mirror.

7 " *La pupa e f atta di zucchero e mieli,
E nui siamu maritu e mugghieri.' "

8 " 'Ora sono ricchi c cuntenti,

Ma nuiautri restiamu senza nenti.'"

THE HAIRY HAND 133

"The step-mother flew into a rage, and commis-
sioned a bad old woman to take the child a long
way from home and leave her in a place from
which she could not find her way back ; but the little
girl guessed what was going to happen, and filled
her pockets with flour; then as they walked she
dropped a little here and there. After they had
gone a long distance they sat down in a thicket
and ate two pieces of bread. The child was so
tired that she fell asleep, and the old woman stole
away.

"When the wicked step-mother asked the mirror
whether or not the girl would come back, the mirror
said yes ; and indeed after a couple of days the child
came home. The step-mother treated her worse
than ever, and after a time inquired again of the
mirror whether the girl was lucky or unlucky. The
mirror repeated that the girl was lucky, so the step-
mother sent her away again with the old woman,
feeling her all over before they started to make sure
there was no flour this time in her bag. The old
woman walked and walked, and when at last they
sat down in a wood the girl was so tired that she
fell asleep before she had tasted food.

"When she awoke alone, the beautiful girl did
not know which way to turn. Not far away she
saw a cave. A latchstring was hanging out, so she
opened the door. Inside she found bread and cheese
and eggs and oil and wine, and she saw men's cloth-
ing hanging from pegs, but nothing belonging to

i34 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

a woman. She knew the men who lived in the cave
must come home to eat, so she gathered minestra
and cooked it, and she killed a hen and stewed it
with onions and olives and basil. Then she set the
table and hid in a corner.

"When the twelve brigands who lived in the cave
came home and saw the table they thought at first
some other brigand must have been there but the
head brigand said, These are not men's doings,
they are the doings of a woman.'

" 'If the woman were here/ said the other
brigands, 'she should be our sister.'

"When the girl heard this, she came out from
her corner. The head brigand made her sit by him
and fed her from his own plate. The men told
her she should truly be their sister to cook the food
and make the beds and attend to all the work of
the cave. They gave her fine clothes and became
very fond of her.

"But after a time the wicked step-mother asked
the enchanted mirror whether the girl was alive or
dead, and the mirror answered that she was alive
and had twelve brothers. Then the step-mother
sent for a witch who gave her an enchanted ring
that had power to throw into a sleep like death any
person who put it on. This ring the step-mother
entrusted to the old woman, who went back to the
wood and offered it to the girl, who put it on her
finger and fell at once asleep.

THE HAIRY HAND 135

"When the brigands came home, they mourned
their beautiful sister as dead. They put her into
a box of carved wood, with a purse by her side,
and carried the box to the top of a high mountain.
One day a prince who was hunting found the box.
When he had opened it, he called his men to carry
it to his palace, for he was wiser than the brigands
and knew that the beautiful girl was sleeping. In
the palace the prince's servant noticed the ring and
watched her chance to slip it off the girl's finger,
saying to herself, 'What a pretty ring! I'll take
it myself !'

"As soon as the ring was off her hand the girl
awoke and asked for her brothers. She told the
prince about her step-mother and the old woman,
but as to her brothers she refused to say anything
except that they lived in a cave. The prince guessed
they must be brigands and gave his word to pardon
them, 'for,' he said, 'you are to be my spouse.' So
they were married and the prince gave the brigands
much land.

"Then again the wicked step-mother asked the
mirror whether the beautiful girl was alive or dead.
'She is now a princess/ said the mirror ; 'she is the
wife of the king's son ; she lives in a splendid palace
and wears fine clothes.'

" Then how can I avenge myself?' screamed the
step-mother.

"The mirror did not answer. It had spoken in
the past, because the beautiful girl was fortunate,

i36 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

her happy fate was certain to be fulfilled. But now
destiny was accomplished. She was a princess and
happy. What more was there to say?

"The step-mother broke the mirror in her rage;
it never spoke again."

CHAPTER VI
Jesus as Destroyer

Another time, when the Lord Jesus was coming home in
the evening with Joseph, he met a boy who ran so hard
against him that he threw him down. To whom the Lord
Jesus said, "As thou hast thrown me down, so shalt thou
fall, nor ever rise." And that moment the boy fell down
and died. . . .

Then said Joseph to St. Mary, "Henceforth we will not
allow him to go out of the house; for everyone who dis-
pleases him is killed."— Apocryphal books of the New Testa-
ment; First Gospel of the Infancy, Chaps. XIX and XX.

In spite of the fervor of the Bambino cult, the
most important person of the Sicilian Holy Family
is the Madonna, because she is not only powerful,
but in her relations with man she is almost uniformly
benign. Caprices of ill-temper are indeed attributed
to her, as in case of the old charm against colic:

9 Vine branches out, vine branches in,
Straw and grain.
Away in no time goes this pain.
For Jesus' sake
No more of this ache.

9 Fora sciarmenti, intra sciarmenti,
Pagghia e frumenti;
Si nni va stu duluri tempu nenti.
Pi lu nomu di Gesu
Mi ci passa e nun mi nni avi nenti chiu.

137

i38 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Once upon a time, the tale goes, the Madonna
was cold and begged of a neighbor cuttings pruned
from the vines. The woman refused, saying she
had none ; but the Madonna knew that she had and
cursed her saying, "May you twist in pain like the
prunings that are twisting under your oven.',
Whereupon the woman writhed in torment until the
Madonna thought she had been punished enough and
charmed away the pain with the prayer now in
use.

But in spite of such trivial outbursts, the Madonna
appears in the folk tales as the world's great kindly
Mother. San Giuseppe, too, is a wholly benevolent
patriarch; but there are aspects of the Lord Jesus
which remind one of the anecdotes of a vindictive
Child Christ related in the Apocryphal Gospels of
the Infancy.

As in more than one ancient trinity there figure
the creator, the preserver and the destroyer-regen-
erator, so in the Sicilian trinity of father, mother
and child one is tempted to place the child as the
destructive force, thwarted and controlled by the
mother. In old stories still current, as in songs
newly manufactured, the Lord Jesus is shown as
wrathful against men as was the far-darting Apollo
towards the people who neglected his altars.

On one of my first visits to Messina after the
earthquake of 1908, 1 heard the wail of a cantastorie
among the ruins, and bought a copy of the penny
ballad the crippled, dim-sighted old man was singing

JESUS AS DESTROYER 139

to curiosity-seekers and to those who sought their
dead in that great sepulchre. The song of forty-
eight stanzas explained the catastrophe as an effort
of Jesus to destroy the world* an attempt limited
in its success by Mary. Said lu Signuri:

. . . "For me the world is dead;
Destroyed would I see the blue sky."
So his mantle black of wrath he took
To break man's back that he die.
He called the earthquake quickly;
To his command it ran.
"Shake thou the earth this minute 1
Destroy perfidious man!"

The earthquake obeyed orders, and men ran from
their houses calling on the Madonna. She was
asleep, but the groans of the dying woke her and
at once she bade earth and sea be still. They refused
obedience, telling her that Christ had expressly com-
manded them to sink the entire earth:

"This word from whom did you get it

To destroy my people devout?"

The sea it answered her promptly.

"The command 't is of Christ, do not doubt."

Then the Madonna went to her son and besought
him by her tears,

Behold how many thousands dead!
The innocent for help who cry!
Forget your wrath, all-powerful son ;
Think of your bitter cross so high.

i4o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Jesus refused to listen, saying that man had been
warned with floods and fire, but refused to respect
either sacraments or gospel, and the time had come
to make an end of him:

See you not man, the ill-liver?
His sins he does not repent;
Even the lads of tender years
New blasphemies invent.

Yet in the end the Madonna had her will. Jesus
put off his black cloak, though grudgingly, and bade
her do as she chose. At once she renewed her
command to earth and sea:

"O earthquake, return to thy corner,"
Then said the great spotless Mother;
"Calm the fears of these my devoted,
And make no more pitiless slaughter.
And thou, sea wave, get back also;
From my son the grace I have got."
So, but for the Virgin Maria,
This earth as 'tis now were not.

But for Mary, the fate of Messina would have
been the fate of the entire world.

Again after the earthquake at Linera in the spring
of 19 14 the "story-singer" sang of the wrath of
Christ and the intervention of the Madonna to
save man. In a ballad called "The Powerful Earth-
quakes in Sicily" Jesus Christ tells his mother that
he can no longer endure the insults heaped on him,
and that if he has called in the earthquake, it is

JESUS AS DESTROYER 141

no affair of hers. This time San Giuseppe came
to his wife's help, demanding payment, if the earth
was to go down in wreck, of the Madonna's dowry:

First give to me the sun and moon,
And stars and earth, then too the sea,
Paradise, angels, archangels and saints;
These must thou give me instantly.
And next consign to me the crown
Of my wife constant and divine;
For these things are her dowry ; of them
She's mistress; hers they are and mine.

The price was found so great that man received
his pardon.

This doggerel, lacking simplicity and sincerity
as completely as it lacks the dialectic interest of the
older ballads, is of value only as showing the me-
chanical continuance of a tradition through its own
impetus.

It was a drowsy afternoon when I first heard
this song of San Giuseppe and the Madonna, one
of those August afternoons when even the sea is
sunwhite, except where waving lines mark the track
of a boat long past or the motion of currents. At
Gna Vanna's doorstone in the Via Bagnoli Croce
a group of women were shucking almonds. Zu
Vincenzu Nanu, the dwarf, has thirty-four trees
on his bit of land under the castle, and their fruit
lay in sacks just inside the door.

Peeling the outside shell off rich brown mennuli
is commonly a merry task, but this day we were

1 42 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

very quiet. The drought was extreme. From where
we sat we could look up at the castle crag above
the town, gray and yellow, bleached and bare, hot in
the sun. Clinging to fissures, dwarfed fichi dTndia
drooped their sapless leaves to the rock. On the
steep lower slopes against the gray-white terraces
stood out withering almond trees, Zu Vincenzu's
among them, dropping discouraged yellow leaves.

Instead of splitting away in ripening, the shells
of our nuts had dried to the stone, making it neces-
sary to use teeth and bits of rock as well as fingers
in shucking them. Mine was the only knife in the
party. The nuts, too, were so small and poor that
low prices stood out in prospect.

Then, too, that morning thirty young men had
left Taormina to join the colors, and who knew
whether or not next morning another manifesto
would be posted, calling other classes, and who knew
whether or not Italy was going into the great war ?
Probably yes ; for both the Pope and the black pope
were dead; God had called home his ambassadors.

"Woe, woe to us others," complained Za Sara,
puckering tighter her brown puckered face. "Last
year I earned a lira and a half a day for a month,
shucking almonds; but this year there are no nuts.
Without taking in soldi how shall we live?"

A breath of wind stirred her rough hair. Za
Sara has only two teeth, though she is not an old
woman; a yellow fang on one side of the lower
jaw and a second on the other side of the upper.

JESUS AS DESTROYER 143

I do not know how she keeps up with the other
women biting off the outer shells of almonds.

"Woe, woe to us," she went, her eyes, drawn
up small by exposure to the sun, lost behind puckers
of anxiety. "God sends us thirst and war! It is
the punishment of our sins."

"Does God send thirst and war?" I ventured.
"Thirst, yes," answered old Za Delfi Sittima —
Aunt Delphia, the seven-months-child; "for the
Lord rains when he will; but war is an affair of
kin-
It was after this pronouncement of the separation
of church and state that we heard the quavering
lament of the cantastorie. A blind old man led
by a boy was coming down the street singing of
the destruction of Linera:

To an earthquake mighty and strong
Christ gave the order, you ken ;
Eut Mary the mother asked him,
"What do'st thou, O Lamb, to men?"

When the singer had tottered away over the cob-
ble stones to the next group of houses, I inquired,
"Why is the Madonna kinder to us than the Lord
Jest:

"Because she is the Mother," said Gna Vanna.

Eastianu, the youngest of her three grandchildren,
had been fretting for a tomato. Pulling a round,
brown loaf of bread out of the table drawer, he
brought it to Gna Vanna, who cut him a piece,

r44 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

muttering as she struggled with the dull knife,
"Hard as a mazzacani," a stone big enough to kill
a dog. Bastianu got his white little teeth into it
without trouble, and flung himself on the sacks
of nuts whimpering for the "pumiduru," the golden
apple, as the tomato is called.

Bastianu was ill. A tomato would hurt him. All
night long he had fever. An ailing child is a great
expense. Five pennies of milk she bought for Bas-
tianu every day, three in the morning and two at
night; while Vincenzinu, his five-year-old brother,
contented himself with bread and wine.

Unmoved by this reasoning, Bastianu whined the
louder. Gna Vanna's face sharpened; her bright
eyes became steely. "Get out !" she screamed. "Get
out of here! You dirty dog! You devil's face!"

The child began shrieking. Seizing Zu Vin-
cenzu's stick, she took Bastianu by the slack of his
dust-colored, faded clothes and cast him at our
feet in the narrow, cobble-paved way. Gasping, he
came back to her side, his dark eyes shining too
big by half in his white little face.

"Why do you make the child cry!" screeched
Gna Vanna, throwing back his stick to Zu Vin-
cenzu, who sat as usual bent in his chair, his head
tied up in a red kerchief, oblivious to everything
that went forward. Kissing Bastianu, she gave him
a tomato in each hand.

"The Madonna," she continued, turning to me,
"is the Mother; she keeps us beneath her mantle.

JESUS AS DESTROYER 145

You know, Signurinedda, how a mother is. If a
child is bad, she gives him some good slaps, but
afterwards she kisses and caresses him. The
Madonna is like that with us. But the Lord Jesus,
you know, Signurinedda, he is her son, and children
have no judgment."

Zu Vincenzu, rousing himself, retreated to a seat
behind the bed, his skin sandals making a scuffing
sound as he crossed the cement floor. Gna Vanna
made spiteful horns with her fingers behind his
back; and then, shucking nuts faster than the best
of us, she began telling us between bites a tale of
how the Madonna thwarted Jesus.

The Ashes of the Sheep

"Once upon a time a boy was minding sheep
when there appeared a man who said, 'You must
give me the best lamb you have/

" 'I can't give it to you/ said the boy shepherd,
'because they are not mine; they are my master's.'

" Then go to your master and tell him there is
a gentleman who wants the best sheep there is.'

" 'Vossia, I can't go/ said the boy, 'because I have
to mind my sheep.'

" Til watch them/ said the man.

"So the boy went, and the padrone, who thought
the man might take all his lambs if he refused one,
told the shepherd to bid him take whichever one
he liked.

i46 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"The man chose the best of the lambs and gave
it to the boy saying, 'Hold it.' The boy took the
lamb by its four feet and held it. Then the man
said, 'Get me some wood/

"The boy picked up what wood he could find and
some light stuff for kindlings. Then the man said,
'Give me a match/

'"Vossia, I haven't any/ said the boy; T don't
carry matches/

" 'But you see that you have some ; you do carry
matches/ replied the galantomo, nodding towards
the boy's pockets. The boy felt in his sacchetti and
found matches. Then the man made a great fire
and said, pointing to the lamb, 'Throw it in'/

"The boy threw the lamb into the fire alive, just
as it was, with all its wool." Gna Vanna took off
her apron and threw it by its four corners on to
the nut sacks, as if it had been the lamb. "Alive
with its wool/' she repeated, her hooped earrings
bobbing, her shining faded eyes expressing the
boy's fright and horror.

"When the lamb was entirely burned, the man
took a stick and scattered the ashes. As soon as
these were cold he told the boy to sweep them with
a brush of leaves. Then he said, 'Give me a hand-
kerchief.'

" 'Vossia/ said the boy, 'I haven't any ; I don't
carry a handkerchief/

" 'You see that you have one/ answered the man,

JESUS AS DESTROYER 147

nodding again towards the boy's sacchetti. The
boy felt in his pockets and found a handkerchief."

Gna Vanna pulled up her faded cotton skirt and
felt in the bag pocket that hung by its cords from
her waist, drawing out a huge kerchief, at which
she gazed with all the amazement of the shepherd
boy.

" 'You see that you do carry a handkerchief,'
said the man. He made the boy hold it by the
four corners while he poured into it all the ashes.'*

Gna Vanna's kerchief drooped in the middle
with the weight of imaginary ashes, and she held
it carefully with both hands, finally knotting to-
gether the corners.

'The gentleman made the boy tie up the bundle,
and he said, 'Now you must go to the sea and throw
it in.'

" 'Excellency, I can't go,' said the boy. 'The
sea is a long way off, your Excellency. I must
mind my sheep.'

" 'You must go to the sea and throw in the
ashes,' repeated the man. 'I'll mind the sheep.*

"So the boy went. Half way on his journey he
met a woman who said to him, 'Where are you
going?'

" T am going to the sea/ he answered, 'to throw
in this handkerchief with the ashes.'

"'Where did you get it?'

" 'A man gave it to me.'

" 'Give it to me.'

1 48 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"When the woman had looked at the hand-
kerchief with the ashes, she said, 'My son! I
thought so! At it again!*

"The woman was the Madonna, though the boy
did not know it; and the gentleman was really the
Lord Jesus. Because of the sins of man he meant
to destroy the world. If the boy had reached the
sea, and had thrown in the ashes, the world would
have gone in ruins like Messina. But the Madonna
took the handkerchief and put it under her arm,
hidden by her shawl.

" 'Because of his sins/ she said, 'I take away
from man three things, bread, wine and oil ; but let
the world stand as it is.'

"Then she said to the boy, 'Greetings/ and she
went away to her own house.

"The boy said, 'Vossia, give me your blessing/
and he returned to his sheep.

"When the boy reached the place where the fire
had been, the gentleman asked him, 'Did you throw
the handkerchief into the sea?'

"The boy said a woman had taken it away from
him. The Lord Jesus knew that it was the Ma-
donna, and he said, 'I salute thee ; nothing but that ;
I salute thee/ The boy answered, 'Your blessing,
Excellency* ; and watched him as he took a step or
two away. All at once the man disappeared. The
boy went home and lay down on his bed. He died
of fright.

"Children have no judgment/' concluded Gna

JESUS AS DESTROYER 149

Vanna. "The Lord Jesus wishes to unmake the
world, but the Madonna does not permit, because
she is the Mother. It is true that we are sinners,
and that is why we have no food. The Madonna
has taken away bread, oil and wine. It does not
rain, and there are no crops ; but the Madonna does
not allow her son to make an end of us. •

"Do I say well?" she demanded, tapping her
forehead with a long forefinger, and glancing from
one to another, confident of approval.

"Are these things excellent? I have no books,
but I have all these things in my head. I know
these things, and other people do not know them.
The Madonna keeps us under her mantle. You
agree with me?"

By this time Bastianu had finished eating, and
was crawling under the table to get at a quartara
of water. He mishandled the thick earthern jar,
which rolled on its side, fortunately without break-
ing. "I'll knock you!" shrieked Gna Vanna with
a blow of her clenched fist under her chin.

Scrambling out of her way and out of the way
of the running water, Bastianu struck the box under
the bed in which sat a hen open-beaked in the heat.
With a squawk the fowl flapped out of the box and
out of the room. Gna Vanna rose threateningly,
but Bastianu had escaped with the hen.

Cumari Ciccia, the most good-natured woman
on the street, had worked at the nuts until glances
from Gna Vanna' s eyes hinting that she ate too

i5o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

freely while shelling sent her to her own steps just
opposite. From that point she could still talk with
us, and now she came back with a pan of greens to
pick over for minestra, saying, "I can tell Vossia
another story."

The Old Man and the Bells

"Once upon a time an old man was digging in a
vineyard when there appeared to him a young man
who said, 'You must go to the church of the Ma-
donna di la Catina to ring the bell.'

"The old man answered, It is far. I have not
strength for the climb.'

"Then the young man, who was the Lord Jesus,
replied, 'You have the strength and you have to go.'

" 'But/ said the old man, 'the church is shut.'

" 'The church is open/ said the young man.

"The old man carried his zappa to the straw hut
where he had left his coat. Then he climbed the
mountain side to the church where no one ever goes
except in September to the great festa. Vossia has
been to the festa? She knows the church, high up
above Mongiuffi? The church was open. The old
man went in, and began to climb the stairs of the
campanile, when there appeared a woman who said,
'Good old man, where are you going ?'

" 'To ring the bell. A young man told me I must
come to the church to ring the bell. He said the
church would be open, and it is open/

JESUS AS DESTROYER 151

"The woman was the Madonna. She said to the
old man, 'What was the young man like?'

"The old man told her, and she said, 'It was my
son, who wants to sink the world. Go away ! Don't
ring the bell.'

"The old man went down the belfry steps and back
to the vineyard. He had just picked up his zappa
and was going to work again when the young man
appeared a second time, and said, 'Did you ring the
bell? I did not hear it.'

" 'I met a woman who told me not to ring.'

"Then the Lord Jesus said, 'My mother! Must
you break my heart again, troubling my plans ?' At
once he disappeared.

"If the old man had rung the bell, the world
would have gone down in ruins."

Donna Ciccia retreated as soon as she had fin-
ished, for Gna Vanna took revenge for the almonds
by nibbling the tenderest greens. Zu Vincenzu had
come back from his corner, and now he suggested,
"Vossia, when you go to your own country, you
must make known to the learned what we tell you

here. I myself must " But Gna Vanna and

the others interrupted the blind old man.

The idea of a benevolent power and a power for
destruction crops out in many directions. Only a
few days after the almond-shelling party there came
a partial eclipse of the sun. An hour or two after
the excitement was over Gna Vanna was snapping
green beans when I passed her door, Zu Vincenzt;

1 52 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

helping by shelling beans out of the larger pods.
When he had finished a handful he reached them out
uncertainly in her direction.

"Signurinedda, did you see it?" Gna Vanna called
to me, patting the back of an inviting chair.

Donna Ciccia, Cumari Lucia, who is Gna Vanna's
goddaughter, and others of the cronies, dropped
their work to come to the doorstep rendezvous.
Donna Ciccia's nose and forehead were still
blackened from gazing through smoked glass. "All
the better it is passed," she said, her dark eyes
twinkling good-humoredly.

Gna Vanna threw the refuse of the beans on a
heap of wool flocks inside the door, her thin ani-
mated old face brightening at the prospect of an
audience. "Yes," she repeated ; "the less harm that
it is over, for an eclipse always brings fear."

"Why?" I queried.

"Because the sun and the moon are angry with
each other; they quarrel, and if the moon should
win, it would destroy the world."

"But the sun always wins," I suggested.

"Yes," agreed Gna Vanna. "The sun is more
powerful. The sun is the Madonna; the moon is
her son, the Lord Jesus ; you know that."

"How do I know that? I don't understand," I
said.

"Certainly Vossia knows that. 'God is sun and
God is moon.' You remember?"

JESUS AS DESTROYER 153

I remembered a couplet I had often heard her
use in spells against the evil eye. So I quoted:

10 God is moon and God is sun ;
Work you ill there can no one.

"That is what you mean?" I questioned.

"Of course !" she returned triumphantly. "Vossia
is convinced? The moon is the young master, the
sun is the Madonna. The moon would like to burn
the world, but the sun does not permit. To-day the
sun, in order not to quarrel with the moon, hid be-
hind the clouds. Instead of doing harm, the sun
did good, because there came a little rain. The Ma-
donna is always kind. She hides us beneath her
mantle."

The neighbors did not contradict her identifica-
tions. More or less openly they call her a witch,
openly and secretly they have, some more, some less,
faith in her knowledge and powers. Cumare Lucia
ventured a wish that the Madonna would send rain
enough to do some good before the olives dropped
off the trees.

The women drifted away to their own doorstones,
and Gna Vanna began to fry peppers for supper.
As I rose to go she paused in front of me, fork in
hand, to say, "It can't rain; the rain is bound."

Her pale blue, bright eyes regarding alternately
me and the peppers, she told me that certain masters

°Ddiu e suli e Ddiu e luna;
Supra di vui nun ci po persuna.

154 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

in charge of work that had been in progress for
some months on the railway below us at Giardini
had taken steps before beginning the job to insure
good working weather. They had made, she said,
five wooden figures of the size of one's hand and
had wound them with cords, each cord tied with
three, seven, or nine knots. With each knot they
pronounced the words, "No rain! No rain! No
rain ! Always good weather !" These five pupi they
buried on five mountain tops overlooking the town ;
on Monte Croce, at the Castle of Taormina, at the
Castle of Mola, on Monte Ziretto and on Monte
Veneretta. Until these pupi were dug up and the
knots untied there could be no rain within the magic
circle. Whenever clouds gathered instead of rain
there came an evil wind, Farauni, and not more than
a few drops fell.

I do not know into what depths of demonology
and magic we might have plunged, if at this minute
Cumari Pancrazia, Gna Vanna' s daughter-in-law,
had not come to show us a photograph she was about
to send to her husband, who is in New York. Gna
Vanna never talks magic when her daughter-in-law
is in the room. She says that Tidda does not under-
stand such matters.

The group picture which Tidda had brought in-
cluded likenesses of herself, little Vanna, her
daughter, and the two boys, Vincenzinu and Bas-
tianu, all painfully clean and fine. She showed me
gleefully how she had pulled down her short dress

JESUS AS DESTROYER 155

under her apron to make it long enough to cover
her feet, and called on us to admire the boys' curls.
The poor things had not had their heads shaved for
the entire summer for the sake of growing those
locks.

"He'll eat it!" she exclaimed, anticipating her
husband's pleasure.

Gna Vanna's face expressed cold disapproval.
She said the photographer charged too much. She
said that Tidda, who in the picture was shown sit-
ting in a high-backed carved chair, looked like San
Pancrazio, the black patron saint of the town, in his
throne seat above the altar. She said a number of
other things which Tidda did not mind in the least,
and so we forgot all about the weather and the
peppers.

PART II
FAIRS AND FESTIVALS

CHAPTER I
Christmas

11 Grande Virgo, Mater Christi,
Quae per aurem concepisti,
Gabriele nuncio.
Gaude quia Deo plena
Peperisti sine pena
Cum pudoris lilio.

— S. Bonaventura's Hymn.

"Rain! Rain!" said Carmela, beckoning from
her doorway with that gesture of invitation which
to the non-Italian means good-by. The rain, in fact,
was coming down so hard that great drops jumped
up from the pavement making "campanelli" — little
bells.

Carmela lives in the Cuseni quarter of Taormina,
where the streets are so narrow that its Corpus
Domini procession is called "the Lord in a hole."
I was bringing Christmas cakes to her smallest
brother, so I took shelter hurriedly in the window-
less room where three women huddled around the

11 Great Virgin, Mother of Christ, thou who by the ear
didst conceive, Gabriel bearing the message! Rejoice because,
pregnant with God, thou gavest birth without pain, with the
lily of modesty.

159

160 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"conca" drew their chairs closer together to make
room for a fourth pair of feet on its wooden rim.

"What a storm !" I exclaimed, shivering.

Even Ninu, Cicciu and Micciu, babies of eight
days, six months and sixteen months, who lay on
their mothers' knees with the passivity of Sicilian
infants accustomed from birth to the click of knit-
ting-needles, were heavily shawled.

"But no, Signurinedda!" protested Carmela, put-
ting fresh charcoal on the white ashes of the conca.
"It's not bad weather. It is only a little passion of
the heart; and He is right, because He has made
enough of splendor. For ten days what a feast of
sunshine !"

"Yes, but to-day "

"Signurinedda!" insisted Carmela, her big seri-
ous eyes continuing to reprove me. "One must not
speak ill of the weather, otherwise He gets annoyed.
And the sun, too; the sun buries himself deeper be-
hind the clouds, because He is discouraged."

Carmela's sister Angelina, looking like a brown,
anxious Madonna — in fact like the Madonna Pani-
cottu pictured at Catania — was feeding Micciu with
bread soaked in hot water. "Where is Babbu ?" she
demanded of the swaddled youngster, poking and
tickling among his interstices, when I inquired for
her husband.

"Babbu is in America ; in America, figghiu beddu !
Tell the Signurinedda Babbu is in America. When
is Babbu coming home to Micciu? In two years,

CHRISTMAS 161

Micciu, tell the Signurinedda. If Babbu makes a
little money, in two years Babbu will come home
from America. Will Daddy be glad to see his baby?
Yes; Daddy has never seen Micciu at all, but he is
very affectionate towards his little pet. Ask the
Signurinedda, Micciu, if she sees your presepio
most beautiful."

At mention of a presepio I glanced about the
room whose smoke-darkened walls were hung with
prints of the royal family of Italy, "coni" — icons —
of various saints, and a high-colored poster adver-
tising Rhode Island rubber boots. In one corner
stood a table whose oilcloth cover was patterned
with a big black Brooklyn Bridge and bordered with
heads of Roosevelt and Washington.

The design of the Bridge, which is common in
homes from which Sicilians have emigrated, was
almost hidden by a presepio so elaborate that An-
gelina was right to be proud of it. Bits of lava,
cork cut into ingenious shapes, sand, lichens and
green moss had been laid out with the help of a
little paint in a miniature landscape, where wandered
shepherds with their sheep and herdsmen guarding
cattle.

"If my Christian were here," said Angelina, in-
terrupting the lullaby she was singing to Micciu, "he
would have made a fountain and a river — Ninna,

ninna, ninna, ninna-

Against the wall at the back was a grotto of lava
stones arched with ivy, twigs of orange and lemon

i62 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

trees in fruit and branches of the sacred thorn, a
buckthorn, of which Christ's crown was woven. In
the grotto, for lack of the traditional wax baby in
a manger, had been placed a small colored picture
of a Madonna and Child together with terracotta
figures of Joseph and Mary, an ox, an ass and some
goats and chickens. At the mouth of the cave were
figures of the Magi and shepherds bringing gifts, all
colored in time-hallowed tints of red, dull blue, yel-
low and gray. In front of the presepio were set
offerings of oranges and lemons, nine snailshells and
two toy automobiles loaded with dry pennyroyal.

For the automobiles Carmela apologized. One
knows they are not appropriate to the presepio ; but
how does one do? Little Saru, her brother, insisted
on using his toys. "He would even have put in a
white porcelain pig!" she protested. "A rabbit,
now, one might endure, but a pig at the manger !"

Carmela had freighted the machines with penny-
royal because the herb would blossom fresh at mid-
night of Christmas Eve, at the very moment when
the Babe is born; provided, of course, she had suc-
ceeded in gathering it precisely at midnight of St.
John's Eve. The snailshells were nine tiny oil lights
for the nine days of the novena, lamps as old as the
automobile is new.

At this point of her explanation entered small
Saru himself, and at an ill-timed word about pigs
cast himself on his stomach writhing. When I had
produced "natalizi," which are twisted Christmas

The Piper

CHRISTMAS 163

cakes pockmarked with hazelnuts baked in their
shells, he discoursed to me tearfully between bites
about the terracotta shepherds, pointing out the one
that carried a sheep over his shoulder, the one who
was offering a basket of curds and the old woman
who was bringing chickens, naming one by one
traditional figures which have not varied for who
knows how many generations of time. He had just
reached "chiddu chi suona 'a ciaramedda," he who
pipes, when the drone of bagpipes came in at the
open door.

"Gagini," said everyone in the room.

Presently there appeared in the doorway the old
piper who has played the novena in Taormina for
thirty years. From morning till night of the nine
days before Christmas, Gagini trudges the ill-paved
ways between the rows of tiled roofs gray and
tumbled, sounding before every one of the fifty or
more presepie his shrill pastorale. He brings lentils
and figs which smell of the smoky fires of the moun-
tains, and receives at the end a few soldi here, a few
lire there, to which those good people who are able
add macaroni and sausage.

Gagini is a goatherd. When his brown-black
wards patter through the Corso at sunset and sun-
rise, and one begs for the milker's last good-measure
squeeze into the foaming cup, then he is just a
good humored old fellow whom the boys call "hair-
feet," because he wears hide sandals; but at Christ
mas, when he fingers the stops and sends out the

i64 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

humming notes of the old pastorale, then comes
Gagini's hour of dignity. His father and his
father's father played the bagpipes. His son has
gone to Argentina ; but, he says, when he dies, some-
one will rise up to succeed him, for the shepherds
played at the birth of Christ, and so long as the
world shall last there must always be those who
pay this devotion.

When the old piper had taken his stand in front
of the snail-shells, and was blowing out his cheeks
to begin the droning wail of the first motif, I slipped
out of the house ; for if one listens, it is to the very
end, and then there are the colored leather tassels
of the pipes to look at and the four pipes themselves,
basso, falsetto, tenore and quarto. The sheepskin
of Gagini's bag has darkened till it is almost black.
The pipes, too, are dark and old, fashioned of some
tough wood like heather.

But I did not stay, because this was the morning
when Gna Angela had promised to tell me a tale of
the birth of the Bambineddu as she had heard it
from her "antichi." More than once Gna Angela
had begun the story for me, but always there had
come some woman anxious about the life or health
of son or husband in America, for news of whom
she must repeat the paternoster of San Giuliano;
or we had been interrupted by some shopkeeper
begging to have her shop rid of the damage to busi-
ness caused by the evil eye of an envious rival. Gna
Angela's repute as one who deals with mysterious

CHRISTMAS 165

powers is such that my friends seldom mention her
except as "that one"; but they keep her so busy
that I rejoiced in a rainy morning in the hope of
finding her at liberty.

'That one" lives in the upper, under-the-castle
quarter of Taormina, and the walk was windy. By
the time I had climbed one of the long flights of
steps that connect the upper streets with the Corso,
the gale had grown worse. The persistent Sicilian
sun shone fitfully, painting the water green, yellow
and blue; but puffs of wind, falling perpendicularly
from the mountains, drovj into the sea to such a
depth that spray rose high like jets from a foun-
tain. Looking over the wall in front of the hospice,
I saw far out at sea troops of little white water-
spouts, like dancing storm spirits, driven towards
shore by the wind that came scudding up the coast
from Catania. Another minute and it looked as if
a wall of water were advancing into the bay of
Taormina.

Gna Angela's bent, tremulous husband stood at
his door. The squall carried away his words, but
I could see him muttering, "Evil spirits are in the
air." Since the Messina earthquake one knows that
the spirits of those killed before their time range
abroad, seeking entrance into human bodies to com-
plete their period of earthly habitation. It is they
who bring us bad weather.

" Vossia !" stammered Zu Paolu, turning towards

1 66 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

me, "a tile might fall on your head ; it's not safe to
be out when such a wind is blowing.,,

Indoors was Gna Angela, bent as always over the
"sciabica" she was netting. Yards of its fine mesh
hung over a broken chair. At her side was a
"conca," its wooden shell partly burned, its mortar
bed holding nothing but ashes. "You here, daugh-
ter ! I was not looking for you !" was her surprised
greeting. Before kissing hands she wiped her lips
carefully.

While I was shaking off raindrops the church
bells and the bells of the clock tower began ringing
to drive away storm demons, or, as one says nowa-
days, to call the people to prayer against them.

"Daughter, do you hear?" asked Gna Angela.

"The bells are tolling 'a penitenza/ "

"For the greater grief ; there is fear in the town,"
said Zu Paolu.

The walls of Gna Angela's room are so grimed
with soot that the saints of the many "coni" show
but dimly. The battered chest, the bed, the rack
holding bottles and a few bowls, the portable stove
made of a square Standard Oil tin — every item of
furniture had seen long usage.

The black fury of the storm which awed the two
old people made the squalid place more desolate.
Gna Angela sat hunched forward in her chair, her
lean sinewy figure huddling under its gray shawl.
Her lower jaw dropped, showing two or three yel-
low fangs. Her gray hair and wrinkled forehead

CHRISTMAS 167

retreated under her faded kerchief ; even her watery
eyes withdrew deeper into their cavernous sockets.

When I spoke of Micciu's presepio she plucked up
heart to show me her own, which was nothing more
than an arch of ivy and myrtle trained over an
icon of the Madonna, a little shelf in front being
covered with flowers with an orange or two as
offerings.

Then she said, "If one talks it is more better,"
and haltingly, with many pauses to listen to the
rattle of the hail, she began a story of Mary which
"my grandmother told me/' she said with a wan
smile, "when I who now have four twenties and
three was a beautiful young girl."

The tale must have been handed down in rhyme,
I think, though Gna Angela gave it to me confusedly
in verse and prose. There are many like it cur-
rent in Sicily, woven in part, perhaps, out of old
monkish versions of the ante-Nicene Gospels,
modified by each generation of tellers and listeners;
for a legend changes, but is never lost, say my old
friends.

When "Mariolina" (dear little scamp of a Maria)
was a child, she said, and went to school, the mis-
tress one afternoon asked all the boys and girls to
remember their dreams that night so as to tell them
to her next day. In the morning, as soon as the
children were assembled, she asked, "Alfieddu, what
did you dream?" Alfieddu related his dream.
Then the teacher asked the same question of Grazia

i68 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

and Carmellinu and Pippinu, and one by one all the
boys and girls told her what they had dreamed.
Maria's turn came last. When the mistress asked
her, "Mariolina, what did you dream ?" Maria
answered:

"I dreamed of a ray of sunshine that entered my
right ear and by my left ear came out again."

Gna Angela turned towards me, and lifted a
gnarled yellow finger touching first the right side of
her head and then tracing a course down through
her body and up again on the left side to her left
ear. "Like this," she said ; "this was the course the
sunray had taken."

The mistress was impressed by this dream. She
told the children it presaged something strange and
important. She said:

These things are clear; it is no jest;
All my books I'll burn; this way is best.

The mistress made a great fire, and called upon
the children to give up their books also. Something
so new and portentous was about to happen that
books of the old wisdom she had taught them had
become useless. Except Maria, all the boys and
girls gave her their books. The teacher asked
Mariolina among the others if she had burned hers.
The little girl was a clever little rogue ; and she an-
swered with a play upon words, "c'haiu"; which
might mean, "I have them" or "I have." The mis-
tress supposed she had obeyed ; but Mariolina kept

CHRISTMAS 169

her book. She hid it under her shawl, in her arm-
pit.

The teacher told Maria that the dream was a
prophecy that she would give birth to a prince or
a king; and in fact before long the Bambineddu
could be seen in the girl's body, lying visible as it
were through the sides of a crystal box.

About this time Maria's parents and the high-
priest and the judicial authorities married her to
Giuseppe, a good old man who had a long white
beard. Giuseppe had lands and houses in Egypt,
and after the marriage he said he must go to his
own country to prepare for his wife. He went
away and after six months came back again. When
the Madonnuzza saw him she said :

12 You are welcome,
Royal husband;

So long it is that I've not seen you.
I cannot think whatever mean you.

Giuseppe looked at her with all his eyes; he saw
she had grown big, and he said with a frown,
"Make up my bundle." He had decided to leave
her.

"Why are you going away?" asked the Ma-
donuzza.

"Because you have betrayed me."

12 Si' bomminutu,
Me spusu riari;

E tantu tiempu ca nun hain virutu;
Supra di vui nun sacciu chi pinsari.

i7o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

(This is like the Protevangelium of James: "And
she was in her sixth month; and, behold, Joseph
came back from his building, and entering into his
house, he discovered that she was big with child.
And he smote his face and threw himself on the
ground and wept bitterly.,,)

He answered her in hostile wrath,
"I go this day to my own hearth ;
To Egypt's land this hour I'm bound.
All my houses I'll raze to the ground."

But at this point there descended an angel, and
said: "Giuseppi,

Of the mistress have no fear;
See, your stick has blossomed here."

"Understand, daughter?" asked the old woman,
speaking as eloquently with long lean hands and
gestures of the shoulders and turns of the corded
neck as with words. "Giuseppi stamped with his
stick, and it flowered in his hand."

Giuseppe saw the miracle, and he exclaimed :

"Now that I know all, how much and why,
I go me not; I stay thee by;
Ever I stay beneath thy cloak,
Till unto life Messiah is woke."

So Giuseppe remained with Maria, and to while
away the hours of waiting he took her to green
places. She saw dates hanging from the branches

CHRISTMAS 171

of a tree, and she begged, "Climb up, dear husband,
and get me some." Giuseppi answered:

"Oh, woe is me ! I'm grown too old !"
The sacred palm bowed to the mould;
Marie plucked the fruit of the tree;
San Giuseppe saw the prodigy.

Gna Angela's tale went on and on, while her
gray old husband, who is, he says, confused in his
mind, interrupted and corrected, and now and then
opened the door wide enough to let in a wet hen and
a gust of rain. At last we came to the point where
Maria said:

"Let us climb up under yonder wall ;
There is a grotto with a stall.
Let us enter, husband dear."
The Madonnuzza's time was near.

San Giuseppe would have swept out the place for
Maria, but there was not time ; flights of angels de-
scended and swept it for him. After the birth the
Madonna was afraid, because there were animals in
the grotto, and she called to Sant' Anastasia, who
happened to pass:

"Come in! Come in! Anastasia dear.
Seest thou this mule? Ah, how I fear!
Take this my son ; keep him thee near."

Sant* Anastasia had no hands, but she stretched
out the stumps of her arms, and when the Madonna

i72 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

laid the Bambino upon them, at once hands appeared.
She gave the baby to her blind father, who was with
her, and when he touched his forehead to the Child's
forehead he saw.

"Understand ?" asked Gna Angela again. "The
Bambino made hands for Sant' Anastasia and eyes
for her father. All day I sit quite alone and say
over to myself these things of God."

But at this point Zu Paolu announced, "The
weather is tired."

Tired weather is resting, preparatory to fresh
activities, so I hurried away in the lull, as confused
in mind as he between dim recollections which
ranged from the old Egyptian faith that the croco-
dile, sacred to our Lady Isis, conceived by the ear
when it brought forth Logos, the word; and from
that other faith that Buddha's mother was a virgin
impregnated by the sun, down to the Sicilian fairy
tale in which a king's daughter shut up in a dark
tower because a seer had foretold that she should
conceive by light, scraped a hole in the wall with
a bone, and bore a child to the bright beam that shot
through the crevice.

When I reached home I heard the padrona call-
ing, "Three castles and you want more?" So I
knew that Mariuccia and Vanni were playing games
with hazelnuts. In Sicily nuts take the place of
marbles. One uses hazelnuts at Christmas and
almonds in August, and the games are the same that
were played in ancient Rome and that are played

CHRISTMAS 173

in America. Four nuts heaped pyramidally make
a castle; at this one pitches a fifth nut, and he who
knocks it down wins.

Luncheon was not ready, so we took a tile out
of the dining-room floor, making a ditch to play
"a fossetta." For this game you throw eight nuts
at once. If an even number go into the ditch, you
win and have the right to snap in the others with
thumb and finger. If an odd number, you lose and
the other player snaps in his nuts.

There had come for me a box from Palermo, a
huge Christmas cake topped with a sugar image of
the Bambino surrounded by spiky rays of gold and
silver tinsel. After luncheon Vanni earned his
share of it by rehearsing the piece he was to speak
in church after the midnight mass Christmas morn-
ing, explaining the church presepio. He had not
yet learned it glibly; but "rough cave," "squalid
manger" and "Babe that wept for lack of comforts"
came out effectively.

I had picked up somewhere a little old hand loom,
shaped like a gridiron, and the good-natured
padrona tried to teach me to weave braid, while we
wore away the hours of a storm Sicilian in its
beauty as in violence. Overhead there drifted a
gray transparent veil of cloud borne by the wind,
and spilling as it flew great hailstones that tore the
first white blossoms from the almond trees in the
garden and rolled them in drifts on the terrace. The
sun burnt hot on the sea, streaking it silver and dark

I74 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

blue, except where the waters of the swollen Al-
cantara made splashes of gold, brown and gray.
Towards mid-afternoon the gale increased, and the
bells tolled once more their spell.

The padrona has almost as many old tales at her
tongue's end as has Gna Angela. "Do you know,"
she asked smiling at my interest, "that three ani-
mals on three mountain tops announced the birth
of the Bambineddu? First the ox lowed, 'E nas-
ciutu lu Redinturi di lu mu-u-u-u-u-nnu ! There is
born the Redeemer of the world V " She prolonged
the Italian "u" to imitate the bellow of an ox.
"Then the ass brayed from his hill, 'Un-n-n-n-n-'e?
Where is he?' and from the third mountain the goat
bleated, 'A Be-e-e-e-e-e-tlem/ "

"Then these animals are blessed?" I suggested,
considering the reward of well-doing.

"But, no, Signora," she returned in surprise ; "the
ox, yes; because in the grotto it warmed with its
sweet breath the Child's napkins. But the ass ate
the Child's straw out from under him. And the
goat also had no respect for the Child; it walked
over him, and for this the goat is accursed; but
some say only from the knees down."

So the day faded and at night Etna wore an
aureole of gold. Next morning the streets were
littered with broken tiles, but sea and sky had
resumed their festival of sunshine. It was the
twenty-fourth of December. Over the casino where
gathers the "Civil Club" the knotted old bougain-

CHRISTMAS 175

villea vine was in glorious blossom. Hedges of red
geraniums warmed the air, and the fields were full
of wild iris.

Towards night a blind ballad-singer, led by his
wife, plodded up the old road from Giardini. Up
and down the Corso and into the narrowest side
streets he wandered, singing to his squeaky violin
a Christmas song that is common on the lips of the
older cantastorie. In the evening when the Christ-
mas fire was lighted in front of the church of Santa
Caterina, he was still there, wailing in a cracked
voice:

On the eve of the Birth

There's rejoicing on earth;

For the dear Babe was born,

To sound of drum and horn.

S. Joseph, the little old man,

To walk he began ;

With good staff in hand

A hundred miles he walked the land

Till a cavern he found,

Where he swept the ground,

For snow and rain had fallen there.

So when came her hour to bear,

A great lady bore her son,

Bore a beautiful little one.

He who passed her did adore;

What beautiful fruit 't was Mary borel

Just before midnight, when the long evening had
been whiled away with nuts and cards, the starlit
streets were filled with dark figures converging at
the Duomo, where before the hour for mass the old

1 76 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

red marble bench, once the throne of Taormina's
Senate, now the rendezvous of unattached boys, re-
sounded to swinging heels.

Mass over and a naked doll Jesus revealed on the
altar by the lifting of a napkin, the flood of people
streamed towards the Carmine, where a presepio
with life-size figures and real hay filled one of the
chapels. Vanni's discourse was not audible, for
outside the church, as soon as the second mass was
finished, red, green and blue lights flared, rockets
fizzed, and preparatory to the street procession two
brass bands began to flare. The crowd which had
come almost to blows with uplifted chairs in its
struggle to get in was even more anxious to get out
again. At my side the peasant who had turned the
wheel of bells to punctuate the mass, scrambled
hastily across benches to get his banner, shaking
over his head the while the white processional sack
of his confraternity.

Presently through the dark Corso passed the
image of the baby Jesus carried by the arciprete and
lighted by flaring torches. Before it marched the
"concerti musicali," and behind it three men played
bag-pipes. Then came men costumed as Magi and
shepherds, and after these the people of Taormina,
a black mass of muffled figures, cloaked and shawled
as if the mercury had said zero, instead of perhaps
fifty-five degrees.

After the masses and the procession, when the
fast of the vigilia is over, is the time to eat one's

CHRISTMAS 177

cake, with more substantial food, unless sleep seems
preferable.

It is at Caltagirone that one should really pass
Christmas, where the Bambino cult requires a liv-
ing Bambineddu. The little Jesus is chosen by lot
from among poor boys about three years old, pre-
sented for alms by their parents; but the lot never
falls, I am told, on any except a beautiful blond.
After the midnight mass Giuseppe and Maria lead
the blond Jesus between them from the sacristy to
the altar, where the naked mite, sometimes whimper-
ing with cold, is exposed for perhaps half an hour.

CHAPTER II
Troina Fair

From Messina Roger advanced by Rametta and Centorbi
to Troina, a hill-town raised high above the level of the sea
within view of the solemn blue-black pyramid of Etna.
There he planted a garrison in 1062, two years after his first
incursion into the island.—/. A. Symonds, "Sketches and
Studies in Southern Europe"

Before dawn I peered from my window in
Randazzo at the impending mountain. Above a
huddle of black old houses Etna loomed dark and
clear and calm, a breath of smoke drifting from its
vaguely white summit. It would be a good day.

Coffee had been promised for three o'clock, but
when I had groped my way down stairs nothing in
the disorderly inn seemed astir except swarms of
flies that, disturbed by my candle flame, crawled
sluggishly over wine-stained tablecloths, and .then
were still again. Stumbling over broken floor-tiles,
I prowled in search of a bell. The eating-room was
windowless, but as the light flickered along the walls
from garish saints to steamship posters it touched
a key hanging beside the street door. Despairing of
breakfast, I fumbled with bolts and stepped uncer-
tainly into the open air.

178

TROINA FAIR 179

The stars had hardly begun to pale. The old
lava-black city perched high on the Northern slopes
of Etna was still asleep; dreaming, perhaps, of days
when beneath its gates Greek and Saracen and Nor-
man bloodied the waters of the Simeto and Alcan-
tara. Behind Randazzo's walls in Roman times the
slave Salvius gathered 40,000 slaves to fight for
freedom. Past the church of Santa Maria that rose
somber at my right marched Peter of Aragon's bow-
men in the days when the Vespers rang the knell of
the French in Sicily. Through the dim Corso wind-
ing left, Charles the Fifth, Emperor of the World,
flaunted his bronzed captains and his laurels won in
Africa.

As I shrank into the doorway out of the path of
ghostly processions a voice said, "Signura?"

A muffled figure detached itself from the house-
wall.

"Silvestro?" I ventured.

"Signura, it is late. Shall we go?"

"Let us go!" I answered, trying to recognize the
driver with whom I had covenanted for a three
days' trip to Troina, the first Sicilian capital of the
Great Count Roger the Norman.

Two horses attached to a carrozzela shifted their
feet sleepily. Silvestro, his long wispy mustache
and faded eyes peering at me from under the
shawls that wrapped his head and drooping shoul-
ders, picked up my bag. I climbed to a seat. The

180 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

whip cracked and our wheels were rattling when
behind us there rose a clamor.

"Silvistru ! The coffee of the Signura !" In the
inn doorway, half-clad, shrieked the fat padrona,
madly waving a candle. "Blessed little Madonna!
Wait! Sil-vis-tru!"

"Silvistru ! A gut-twisting colic to you !" bawled
Pietro, son of the house, shaking back his lock of
tow-colored hair as he tilted towards us on gro-
tesquely tall heels.

"By the souls of my dead!" sputtered the old
padrone, limping to the carriage-side with coffee pot
and drinking bowl.

In spite of Silvestro's muttered "Accidinti! It
is late!" I swallowed a scalding mouthful. Then
after hasty farewells we clattered through the tor-
tuous Corso flanked by grim mediaeval houses — a
stronghold in itself where in troublous times men
might bar themselves against all enemies. Suddenly
wheeling to the right, we plunged into a black
passage. Straining my eyes towards the arches
that linked the walls overhead, I was surprised by
the stopping of the horses.

Alighting at a murky doorway, Silvestro picked
from the skirts of a woman who came to meet us
a mite of a girl whom he lifted to my side.

"Aita," he ordered, "put on your hat. Aita, blow
your nose."

Silvestro has suggested to me earlier that his
wife, who, like himself, came from the Alpine rock

TROINA FAIR 181

01 Troina, would like to see again the great yearly
fair which was my excuse for the expedition. A
mention of three bimbi too small to stay behind had
restrained me from hospitality; but here was one
child, and Silvestro had gone indoors. Must I
transport the family ?

"Her name is Agata?" I asked dubiously.

"Si, Signora; Aita," returned the mother, trying
to adjust a flower- wreathed hat which the child
pushed fretfully away from her light stringy hair.

Before I could question further the lank driver
reappeared, cuddling something under his shawls.

"Let the Signura look!" he swaggered. He held
up in the circle of his long arms two almost naked
babies. "Let her see how blond they are!"

"Especially the boy?" I hazarded, glancing fear-
fully at the scant yellow hair of the wriggling
twins.

"Gia ! Turriddu is blond as honey. Daddy's big
boy!"

"Turriddu is, in fact, the handsomer," beamed
the mother; "but to-day he is ill, he eats nothing.
The Signura will excuse that I do not take him,
ugly with crying, to Troina? Aita will keep the
Signura company."

Effusively I took leave of the small pale diplo-
mat who had let me off with one baby. "Buon
divirtimentu!" she called as the horses started. "Be
good, Aita."

"Aita, put on your hat !" repeated Silvestro. "It

182 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

is late." But the five-year-old snuggled down in the
coat I put about her, teasing sleepily, "Papa, buy me
a doll?"

As we passed West out of Randazzo, Mongibello
rose South of us, green and black against the
whitening sky, the snow that still streaked its shoul-
ders contrasting harshly with sooty fingers of lava.
In the East filaments of dawn clouds floated; and,
while I watched, the mountain top blushed saffron.
In an instant the fairy glow had vanished; and,
shut away from us by rugged heights, the sun had
risen from the Calabrian hills.

We were following up the Alcantara between
Etna and a scrap of rock that dropped abruptly to
the river, beyond whose high valley we looked
North to the foothills of the Peloritan mountains,
mottled dark with oaks and the vivid green of
wheat. Behind us Randazzo on its seat of ancient
lava overhung the cliff, the Norman tower of San
Martino thrusting up above the black houses.

Along the lonely road we passed now and again
dark hooded figures hunched over slow-stepping
mules. Huddled in a rough cappotto worn like a
burnoose, its hood pulled over the forehead, its
sleeves hanging empty, gun on his shoulder or slung
at his back, man after man turned towards us a
lean, leathery face with high cheekbones and keen,
suspicious eyes.

Leaving the river, we held Southwest across a
wilderness of lava that lay as grim in the early light

TROINA FAIR 183

as when centuries ago it crunched and hissed down
from a spent crater above our heads, one of the
two hundred "sons" that sprout from the sides of
Etna. Hardly had we entered this waste, sar-
donically gay with flame-colored lichens, when the
air was filled with bleatings. Bunched beside the
road in an amazing hamlet we came upon black pens
roughly piled of slag and clinkers. Of the shep-
herds' huts beside these grimy folds a few were
roofed with new red tiles but the most were caves
supplied by bubbles in the lava.

"Licotta!" lisped Aita, struggling to a sitting
position.

"Ricotta? Sure! What says the Signora?"
asked Silvestro, twisting his bent shoulders towards
me. "Zu Puddu!" he shouted, as in a yard where
steaming kettles spoke of cheese-making there
started up a dwarfish old man.

"Don Silvistru !" returned the other.

Agile as a lizard the shepherd came towards us,
his little black eyes lively with curiosity. Behind
him raced swart children and from a hovel peeped
a bare-legged woman. "Ricotta ?" she echoed. "I
myself strained the milk through fern leaves and
stirred it with wild olive twigs." Her great ear-
rings shook as she trotted to the carriage-side, fetch-
ing a wooden bowl full of curds made from "re-
cooked" whey.

While we ate Zu Puddu questioned, "Is it true
that in the land of the Signura they do not know

i S4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

ricotta?" His face puckered with wonder. "When
the cheese is made the 'Murricani throw away the
whey?"

After breakfast our road forked, one branch veer-
ing South towards Bronte, home of the thunder
god, and the other, which we followed, West across
the mountain-surrounded valley from which issue
both the Simeto and the Alcantara. Running sea-
ward, one West and South of Etna, the other North
of it, the rivers enclose the mountain, opening high-
ways which Sicanians, Siculians, Phoenicians,
Greeks, Carthagenians — every race that has known
Sicily — has followed between the coast and the in-
terior of the island.

The land was blotched with lava. On its North-
ern face Mongibello's black glaciers sprawl until
they strike the Peloritan rocks and the hills of
Cesaro and Centorbi backed against the Nebrodeans.
One minute we were passing green waves of wheat
or fave, the mouth-filling broad bean; the next we
were crossing an old lava flow, whose slowly
crumbling substance lay here in hummocks and
there in pools wrinkled like molasses. Here molten
stone had tossed in inky surf and there it had broken
over some obstacle in mud-colored rapids of coke
and clinkers.

From crevices of the rock grew mullein stalks
and sunburnt weeds. Dwarfed and twisted cactus
wrestled for existence. Over the road hovered
sulphur-yellow butterflies. Once or twice we started

TROINA FAIR 185

quail. We met a begging friar riding a mule whose
saddle-bags bulged.

"Beetle!" spat Silvestro, making the sign of the
horns.

The enormous straw hat above the brown habit
did not turn. The fingering of the rosary went on
as mechanically as the plodding of the mule.

It was the first day of June and the sunrays
began to prick. A light scirocco was stirring, the
cloudless sky looked pale. Etna had hidden his
oaks and chestnuts, his yellow splashes of genestra
and his stretching lava fingers behind blue aerial
veils. Quivering in the distances ahead of us blue
and white dream castles seemed to float on clouds.
Silvestro named them — Agira, where Diodorus
Siculus was born, though Silvestro knew him not,
and where S. Filippo cast out devils ; Centuripe on
its hundred rocks and lofty Troina.
"It makes hot," fretted Aita.
She twisted herself out of her wraps and dis-
closed an odd little figure in a soiled blue dress. Red
strings tied up greenish stockings.

"Put it on, Aita!" bade Silvestro; but the mite,
instead of complying, dropped at her feet the dis-
tasteful hat.

"Aita is wild," pursued Silvestro. "Not that I
hold with hats ; chinicchi-nacchi !" he added. "But
let one woman bring home fantastic gear from
America, every skirt in town goes mad for it." He
shrugged his shoulders, exposing patched, sun-faded

186 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

raiment, far from fantastic. "Aita, blow your
nose !"

We had crossed the dry bed of the Flascio and
had come to a succession of no-trespassing signs
that read, "Duca di Bronte; Private Street."
"Duca di Bronte; Hunting Forbidden." North of
us lay the vast feud, once of the Abbots of Maniace,
which Ferdinand IV gave to Nelson, rewarding with
a dukedom the Admiral's betrayal of the Republic
of Naples.

The strawberry-leaved notices marked more than
the "too fine compliment." "La Nave," the lava
stream that flooded the valley, lay desert as far as
our road, but across it on the Duke's side shimmered
waist-high wheat. As we drew under the wooden
ridges that shut the valley to the North Silvestro
prattled of the Duke's rich lands, of his olives, his
vines and his strange machines. So we reached the
crossways where the road from Bronte, traversing
the "Ship," cuts the highway before climbing to the
nook in the hills where lies Nelson's castle.

The plain of the "sconfitta," Silvestro to my de-
light called the region; for after a thousand years
daily speech still records the rout to which in 1040
Georges Maniaces here put 60,000 Saracens. The
Greek was besieging Moslem Siracusa when Abd
Allah's hosts poured down from beyond Etna to our
plain, not yet blackened by La Nave, whence he
could reach the sea. Taken thus behind, Maniaces
led his Norse and his Russians, his Asiatics, his

TROINA FAIR 187

Italians and his Norman knights up by the Simeto.
He camped near wood and water, and the spot has
never lost his name. Abd Allah sowed the ground
with caltrops, but Maniaces attacked with a wind
that drove with him and, despite the iron barbs his
cavalry "reaped" the Saracens.

We crossed the Simeto and began to crawl up the
interminable windings of the hills down which came
Abd Allah and, later, a greater than his conqueror
— Roger, son of Tancred, who added Sicily to the
domains of the Normans.

It was a confusion of mountains that we entered,
mountains that rode one another's backs. Aside
from the red-painted stations of the road-menders,
there were few houses, fewer trees. The sun was
blinding on the white ribbon of the road. The
baked soil opened in drought fissures.

As we climbed past thirsty wheat and fave, the
horses, gray with white feet, like those Goethe saw
in Sicily, stopped to breathe ; and from a close above
the roadway limped down a gray man wrinkled
like a baked apple. Eyeing us curiously, he piled
my lap with scalora, refusing payment with head
and hands as well as voice that squeaked, "The
owner, it is I!" But when Silvestro priced arti-
chokes, fearing Troina's high cost of festa, our
owner, turning merchant, turned miser. Ten
minutes he haggled before the horses' water basin
was heaped with them.

As we crept up zigzag after zigzag Aita nibbled

188 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the straight green lettuce. High above us Cesaro
showed at moments, a gray mass above a gray
mountain. In the hot sky to the left quivered
Troina. Silvestro bargained with a gunner for a
quail to make broth "for Turriddu, who eats
nothing."

After we had broken fast on bread and eggs at
a roadside locanda, wayfaring in the noonday heat
grew slower. The sun beat on lonely pasture coun-
try where the silence was broken only by the wail-
ing song of laborers stacking scant hay. On rocky
hillslopes stretched sheepfolds defended by the
thorny spina santa. Conical thatched huts rose near
them, the shepherds' shelters.

At last the road twisted downward, grazing
precipices, looping over ridges, dipping into hol-
lows. Below us lay the valley of the Troina River,
a green streak in a gray desert. Under naked banks
cattle cooled their feet in the trickle of water. Be-
yond the river we crept for an hour up dizzy shelves
of the mountainside, catching glimpses now of the
depths below, now of the eagles' perch above. The
gray tufa blocks of which it is built mortised
squarely into its tufa cliffs, house above house,
street above street, Roger's city sits its mountain
ridge as if astride a saw.

Reaching wearily the tumble-down Cenobio of
S. Basilio, we skirted the slope where the greatest
animal fair of Sicily would open at gunfire, and
wound along under the far side of the town; for

TROINA FAIR 189

no road attacks the ancient citadel except cautiously,
from behind. Was it to this same gate, I wondered,
that Roger led his freebooters when, plundering
Sicily twenty-two years after Maniaces, he threat-
ened Greek Troina; and its Christian people, still
free from the Moslem on their rock in the wild Val
Demone, opened to the blond Norman horse thief
and welcomed him with crosses and swinging cen-
sers as a protector against the Saracens.

Inside the gate Silvestro pulled up at a squalid
locanda provided, he assured me, with "all the con-
veniences of English usage. Put on your hat,
spoiled child !" he railed cheerfully at Aita as a knot
of acquaintances started towards him.

The Stella's fat little asthmatic padrone led me
into a dark passage that ran through the inn and
opened one of a procession of low doors.

"What pleases you ?" he panted amiably. "Shall
Silvistru unharness ?"

The grimy walls once whitewashed and the dirty
floor to which I was introduced did not please me
twenty francs' worth, that being the room's price
per night; but, explained my host, in June God
gives Troina the providence of the fair. When
Uncle January should send snow to stop travel, my
excellency might stay the night for a lira. Besides,
his wife was giving me her own room.

His wife had already fetched a petroleum tin
full of water, drops of which made mud on the
bricks. Mumbling that the servant creature was

i9o BY-PATHS IX SICILY

out, she produced soap and a broken comb. She
uncurled a mountainous roll of mattress at the
: of a bed, spr it on boards that rested

on iron horses. From a deep chest she took home-
spun linen and a blue spread figured with red,
trumpet-blowing angels.

While she examined my hat and dusty clothing,
fingered my watch and flattered as "blond" my
tanned skin, It: /thing I tried to

fascinated by the erratic motions of my hostess'
: tooth and by her straining eyebrows, dragged
up from the yellow parchment of her face by a
sinfully tight knot of hair.

.Before I had detailed, as in duty bound, my per-
sonal history and excused th . ,- of other
members of my family, Silvestro returned alone,
having shifted to a sister the job of getting Aita's
hat on. With him as guide I abandoned rny "Eng-
lish c : '..:'• its" for the narrow street, where push-
tfl and benches, : rid forks
for thrashing, sick] .ri," which are
)den angles for holding grain in reaping,
awaited the opening of the fair.
A : fa hung ;. hinting at wild
.try; but iggiero I
saw littl crumbling walls bare of
windows and balconies and grimly eloquent of win-
ter, of such individuality a onj
and other mountain stro:
At

TROINA FAIR 191

we came to Rogers cathedral, built beside his

bv mason? whom the Great C I h m

parts soever." Rebuilt except its C vers

now the nuns. A > high altar

throned, not Mary, patron saint of the
marauder, but S, SuVestro, a monk wl ■ i
man-els in Troina in R ger*s I -'

centuries has bea Hisfestail

that the great fair h

I ; se of his si) bes and

the silver vara on which he takes his outings,
of the brown old pictures in the sacristy :: Roger
and his brother-in-law .. first Norman bis-

hop of Troina ; for it was four

Eire, Down a narrow way on :'::<: cas: sidt :
the town Sflvestro rushed me I ck shell de-

fended by a parapet directly above the unc
stretch of rolling I llsidc called th< 'plain" oi
fair.

S^j s< settinf

Over a world of mountains our isol stood

d. watching isses in ti Far be-

low us the Troina River joined the Simeto,
yond Cesaro rose naked hills, ridge above ridge;
sunburnt lands of wheal and pasture, AJ
at, under a rain of light

5S d< uds, dimly visible
through the scirocco, loomed Etna, ai
ing hinted the . i
A shot rang i

BY-PATHS IN SICILY

with cattle. From everywhere and from nowhere
trampling droves covered the hillslope; rushing
from this side, that side, meeting; passing, losing
themselves in swirling maelstroms, each stream of
horns or tossing heads driving hard towards its own
goal.

"What a sight!"' shouted Silvestro. "They shoot,
and gone is the grass!"'

The grass had vanished under the hoofs of horses
and mules, bulls and cows which milled so thick
"one could not drop a grain of wheat between
them!" And this. Silvestro boasted, was only the
prelude ! A fine show, yes. but nothing to the fair
next day.

"From as far away as Calabria,'' he gloated,
"come beasts to Troina !"

After the confusion of harried animals had sub-
sided I scrambled down to the plain. Men and
beasts were settling themselves on hummocks and
in hollows; the herdsmen in taciturn groups lean-
ing on goadsticks — black as Moors they were, with
high cheekbones and wild, not unkindly faces; the
cattle snuffing the grass that had grown three
months uncut to give them forage. A path was al-
ready trodden to a fountain behind the Stella, and
boys all patches and beady eyes were fetching water.

As I ventured among the horses, few of which
were hobbled or tethered, I caught gloomy phrases
about a "cold fair." With its bustle and its huge-
ness the fair looked far from "cold" ; but perhaps

neither the fa

their mount ::, inspecting th

, nor their ret::

n their 1/
to the ground to lift a foot 01 b open a mouth,

had I up to Sil »n.

More attl than the rather

ere the thou
their handsome "basti/' their gay 1 ;led

lie-cloths ar. I ith red *

and embroidered with scrolls and arabesque
and animals, the utul of the :'

The i -d colta and} mules, fif

hundred to the bunch, were I
the

looked at, as did the tall red cov
long, the very cattle rr' H ;".: . hunted by the C
panions of Ulysses. On tli ! sulked hud-

dles of sheep with noses to the :; intruders

they itV. Ives in the : the '';

r "— red-skinned 1

The collars of the bell- rhich I had

see, proi lly crude and uninteres:: ugh

patience found me a few carved and painted in the
old manner with sain- Madonna uble-

headed < ieri and their trail

Two girl- whose orai I kerchiefs and

huge earrings caught my eye were tending a c
as big as an ox which at rny approach turne :
neck stiffly in a tight

i94 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

figures. On one side St. George in red spiked a
green dragon, on top was a crucifix and on the other
side a swarm of beseeching Souls in Purgatory.

"How are you, Excellency?" asked the younger
girl, adding in Mulberry Street English, "Wat-a
you do 'ere?" Laughing, she hid her face in her
apron.

We laughed together as a hot-air balloon in the
shape of a horse drifted over the fairground from
the heights of the city. There followed a swollen,
unwieldy cow and a menagerie of other animals,
some of which, taking fire, blazed merrily.

As the air grew dusk and I climbed towards the
Stella, cloaked and hooded figures, silhouetted
against the sky as they galloped along a rise of the
hill, seemed to shift the scene to a camp of
Bedouins.

"What would your Ladyship like for supper?"
was my landlady's greeting.

"What is there?" I retorted.

"Bread, wine and sleep."

The humorous old padrone rested her head on
her hand, feigning slumber.

"Bread and wine," I agreed; "but no sleep till
after S. Silvestro's procession."

Doubling a sheet over a greasy pine table, she
fetched in addition to bread some hard sausage,
very salt, and a plate of faviana, green beans.

Before I had eaten, Aita was at the door with
Silvestro; Aita washed and dressed in white and

1 1

o O

TROINA FAIR 195

wearing her flower-wreathed hat. She carried a doll,
she was eating "torone" and Silvestro wanted
money. He had a toothache, he said, and in fair-
time no dentist would look at him for less than ten
francs.

"Doll," teased Aita; "my doll." She twitched my
skirt with sticky fingers, holding up the doll. Of
course Silvestro needed money.

Going out into the warm darkness, we met Aita's
aunt and cousins near the cathedral — the title lasts,
though the Great Count himself who built it trans-
ferred the bishopric to Messina. With chairs which
the party carried we sat blocking the street in com-
fort until in the distance rose frenzied "evvivas."
From S. Silvestro's own church below the paese
half of the city was upon us, following his relics to
the cathedral.

With flare of rockets and deafening drumbeat
there approached a host of torches lighting up the
long white sacks and black mantles of a confra-
ternity that followed. Candles flickered over
bronzed faces that looked out from under turbans
whose white flowing ends drooped to the shoulders
and rolled behind the back into a queue. Other
drums and a phalanx of torches led a second con-
fraternity with red mantles, and then a riot of
shouts heralded a third whose color was blue. Last
of all passed priests and friars escorting the Euchar-
ist and the silver image that holds a bone of the
saint's skull. As the torches moved, flaming, up the

i96 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

high steps of the cathedral, rockets flashed skyward,
and from stands above our heads there broke out
crashing music.

Between blare and bang Aita fretted, and her
aunt told shivery tales of S. Silvestro's tomb. Sunk
below an altar of his church, it rises. "Half an
inch,,, she said, "since last year. Something will
happen !"

And something happened. Silvestro said that
next day we should see neither an "Intrillazzata"
nor a Cavalcade.

Though he is but a second class thaumaturge,
with little more to boast than that he healed a king's
son and rode his stick to Catania and back in a day,
and that a falcon and a flame revealed his burial
place, lost for centuries, S. Silvestro's festa has
been honored by spectacles that might stir the jeal-
ous wrath of many a greater saint.

He had a miracle play; has it yet, sometimes;
and against hope I had hoped to see black-robed
Lucifer in his priest's hat and the angels and God
himself who figure in the "sacra rappresentazione,"
now legend, now Bible story; for as time goes on
and towns spend less and less on festas, Troina's
miracle play, seldom put on paper — for peasant
poets who cannot write give out their rhymes by
word of mouth to peasant actors who cannot read
— may soon become a memory.

If the Sindaco is generous or his own income
permits, S. Silvestro holds a Cavalcata, when

TROINA FAIR 197

Roger's knights spur shining steeds through
Roger's Corso. In Scicli, for the Madonna of the
Militia the Great Count still struggles, festa after
festa, with the Saracen; and so at Aidone. But
Troina, Norman capital, celebrates Norman victory.

In Troina Ruggiero stood that hungry siege
when he and his newly wedded Eremberga shared
a single cloak. Once his horse was killed under
him when he had sallied from the gate; but, swing-
ing his sword in gleaming circles, he dragged off
bridle and saddle — so, grown old and garrulous, he
used to boast to worshiping Malaterra — shoul-
dered the harness and hewed a bloody way back to
the walls. In the fight above Cerami St. George on
a white charger scattered with his gold-tipped spear
50,000 paynim, and the Norman handful, trium-
phant, gloried in the miracle.

And so for S. Silvestro, who saw that fighting,
his devotees, when there is money, don helm and
spear like those of the warriors painted on the carts,
and in guise of paladins they prance and curvet
now rising in their stirrups, now leaning from the
saddle, to divide to ladies at their windows and to
the mob the flowers and confetti carried by their
squires — spoils of the vanquished dogs of Mussul-
mans.

"Quintals of sweets it takes," explained Sil-
vestro. "Not every year can we see a Cavalcade !"

"In the old days they gave chickens," sighed
Aita's aunt.

i98 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

That night when braying mules and trampling
horses murdered sleep I vowed to ignore next year
such modern things as miracle play or strife of
Cross and Crescent, and to reach Troina a week be-
fore the festa to see an ancient function whose
roots are deep so that it fails not — the bringing of
the laurel.

When Apollo re-entered Delphi after he had killed
Python he wore laurel plucked in Tempe to guard
him from avenging ghosts. And every eighth year
thereafter throughout the old years a Delphian lad
burned a mimic dragon's den, and fled, blood-guilty,
to Tempe and the purifying laurel, bringing
branches home with pomp and music before the
Pythian games to crown the victors.

And every spring to-day Troina men go out to
fetch the laurel, wandering for days, for there is
no Tempe near. On Sunday two weeks before the
festa hundreds who went on foot return in pro-
cession, crowned with the sacred leaves. Seven days
later the hundreds who went on horseback clatter
home, firing guns as they approach to call Troina
to the parapets. Gay with boughs and ribbon, the
Cavalcata d'Addauru, spurring to the cathedral,
casts sprigs of laurel at it, keeping the rest, blessed
and blessing, throughout the year.

Next morning the "A-a-a-h! A-a-a-h!" of don-
key boys waked me before sunrise. In the court-
yard under my window horses were being put to an
ante-diluvian stage named in tall letters "Automo-

TROINA FAIR 199

bile." Slipping out of doors behind pattering asses
buried to the ears in hay, I followed to the fair
ground.

The encampment on the plain looked chill and
sluggish. The black masses of cattle chewed in-
differently at the red-flowered sudda in their forage.
The men stood in silent groups, rigid, motionless.
Each had his "scappularu" buttoned across his
chest, or one end of the long cape was flung over
the opposite shoulder. Hoods were pulled forward
over dark wild faces. Men of tougher fiber they
looked than the people of towns.

Breakfast was in progress. Against heaps of
saddles sat cowherds and horseboys, the skin san-
dals that covered their feet sticking out straight in
front of them, hacking chunks of bread with their
American knives from the round loaves which they
pulled, together with cheese and onions, from their
saddlebags, and drinking from wooden bottles
hooped like casks.

I found one of my cowgirls of the day before
muffled in a black shawl, an end of which was
drawn across her mouth. An old woman had joined
her, and the two, cushioned on mounds of clover,
were munching bread. Presently the other sister ap-
peared balancing a tin of water on her head, lead-
ing the big cow at the end of a rope and knitting.

The scene was as yesterday, the light brilliant
upon the wonderful circle of mountains presaging
heat. Boys were passing up and down with water

2oo BY-PATHS IN SICILY

flasks; animals drank at the great fountain. The
women with cows wore enormous earrings and
faded gowns of print. The sheep huddled together,
faces toward the ground.

At eleven o'clock we lunch on bread, eggs and
wine, and start. Aita's white dress is soiled, but she
still has the medal. Silvestro, who has paid five lire
to have his offending tooth drawn, is tired and
cross. The fair in the street is now lively; sheep
are roasting; unidentifiable meats are frying; there
is noisy sale of small necessaries, sickles, sparta
grass ropes, three-tined hay-forks, pots, pans and
the like. A relative of Silvestro going down to
Linguaglossa ambles beside us on muleback; later
he is to leave his mule at home and ride with us.
We are all sleepy, even the horses; but Silvestro's
young relative scrutinizes every bunch of cows or
flock of sheep we pass, and asks what they cost at
the fair.

White, winding, shadeless road; browned fields;
brown, bare mountain slopes, the farther hills in
summer haze — down again to Fiume di Troina,
which helps make the Simeto; it is nearly three
o'clock when we make the beetling crag of Cesaro,
our first goal, where we eat again bread, eggs and
a handful of green fave, washed down with wine,
and are off.

Near a country house the family — two boys,
three or four girls and the mother — are furbishing
up a "cona" of San Calogero for his festa, which

TROINA FAIR 201

is due at Cesaro, June 18, a great fair. The shrine
is of the usual wayside sort, a miniature chapel with
cross on top, figure of the saint in a niche and a little
shelf for oil and flowers. The girls have white-
washed it inside and out, and are now putting on
stenciled decorations. At each side of the front
wall a girl has put a yellow flower pot with yellow
plant ; she is adding a large full-blown blue flower.
Her stencil pattern is cut out of brown paper; she
holds it with one hand against the white wall and
dabs paint with the other. It takes her only a min-
ute or two to blue-flower both walls. Silvestro
asks if they light up the saint all the year round,
and they reply, only at the time of the festa. He
tells them that if they leave Calogero in the dark
all the year except at festa they cannot expect him
to do much for them.

We chat with the girls while the boys climb up
into the fields above to cut artichokes for us. Sil-
vestro haggles to get four for a soldo, but he has
to give a trifle extra.

Looking back on the way to Randazzo, Tro-
ina's low black houses in the distance seem like nests
of birds or the lair of beasts of prey. The men talk
about animals while Aita sleeps, nodding when her
father scolds her because she drops her sweets, or
doesn't blow her nose often enough, or will not
wear her hat. We pass a big plantation of fave and
Silvestro says we can gather there, as it belongs to
a cousin, and Aita wakes up to eat.

202 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

There is a fine view of Randazzo as we at last
draw near, with Etna in the evening light vast and
serene; and as we plunge into the streets of the
town we find them gayer than is their wont, the
long main street especially thronged for the pro-
cession of l'Annunziata, the balcony flower pots
gay with Bermuda lilies, roses and bright gera-
niums. So, consoled for the gayeties we had cut
short at Troina, we look for a little at the proces-
sion, the torches, the robes of the confraternita, the
Madonna and the angel — a grim, dark face under
a white head-cloth — until sleep has its will of the
weary.

CHAPTER III
Saint Philip the Black

The expulsion of demons from the bodies of those unhappy
persons whom they had been permitted to torment was
considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of religion,
and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apologists as the
most convincing proof of the truth of Christianity. The
awful ceremony was usually performed in a public manner
and in the presence of a great number of spectators. — Gib-
bon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"

Calatabiano means "Citadel of Bian," and to
this day the gray little town beside the Alcantara
huddles under the ruins of the Arab chief's strong-
hold. High on the castle hill near the fort's outer
wall stands the small mediaeval church of Bian's
successor in the protectorate of the neighborhood,
San Filippo the Black, the great exorcist of Sicily.

As well ask who was the forgotten Bian as who
was S. Philip the Black. His color tells nothing.
San Pancrazio of Taorrrina, San Calogero of Gir-
genti and the Madonna of Tindaro are black. In
Sicily, as in other Catholic regions of Europe, black
Christs and black Virgins have succeeded to black
Isis and the black Venus of Corinth.

In Calatabiano San Filippo is called "the Syrian."
203

2o4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Omodei, who lived in Castiglione on Etna in the
sixteenth century, says that he came from Constan-
tinople into Sicily in the reign of the Emperor Arca-
dius, and drove out the demons that infested the
country. Agira, where he died, and Calatabiano
have been centers of devotion to him for many hun-
dreds of years ; and in other towns of Eastern Sicily
he is famed as a liberator of the "possessed" and
for the frenzy of his processions.

It is not more than four or five years, for in-
stance, since Sicilians in the United States sent
money for a new statue of San Filippo to their
home in the mountain village of Limina, where the
old one had been broken by many falls. At Limina,
when the saint goes out in yearly procession, the
contadini who carry the beams at one end of his
vara, acting not of their own will but as automatons
under his control, push and pull so madly against
the tradesmen who carry the beams at the other end
that these battering rams are hurled against trees
and walls, until not infrequently vara and saint go
to the ground. If in the tug of war an outer stair-
way or a projecting balcony that encumbers the
street is demolished, or the growing crops of an
unpopular landlord are trampled, this was San
Filippo's will ; his bearers could not help themselves.

The new American statue remains discreetly in
the church. It is still the scarred veteran that in-
spires the Dionisiac madness of the procession.

At Calatabiano the feature of San Filippo's pro-

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 205

cession is speed. The "traditional, most rapid,
miraculous descent of the simulacrum of the saint
from the castle hill in less than five minutes" — to
quote from a notice posted annually in near-by vil-
lages— draws thousands of spectators.

Yet at noon of a hot, still eighteenth day of May
Calatabiano was drowsing so heavily that if I had
not seen a carter bargaining with a cobbler for four
pairs of children's white shoes, I might have thought
I had mistaken the date of the festa. It is true the
descent was not to take place until six o'clock in
the evening.

As I climbed the narrow way that leads between
gray wasps' nests of houses plastered against the
hill to the mountain path, four children picked
themselves up from the powdery soil and followed.
There was Nunziata, a tot in a dusty blue dress
that came to her heels. From broken stone to broken
stone of the precipitous ascent she struggled on,
though at times a bobbing 1^ead tied up in an orange-
colored kerchief was all that we saw of her. There
were Saria and Cicciu, wiry creatures, yellow with
malaria, who darted ahead in chase of lizards or
for the cautious gathering of prickly wild arti-
chokes. And there was half -blind Ninu, a waif and
a beggar, who paused now and then at one of the
rudely painted stations of the cross to pass his hands
over the pike of a soldier or the nails in a basket
carried by one of the Jews.

The way was deserted, except for the bees in the

2o6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

yellow blossoms of the cacti, until half-way up we
came to the solitary church of the Madonna del
Carmine, where strong brown women were getting
in the ecclesiastical hay. "Time of almonds," they
said when I asked the date of the Madonna's f esta ;
"in the time of ripe almonds." It seemed, that
sleepy afternoon, a definite enough reply.

And so we came to San Filippo's mountain
chapel. Here a couple of men were planting rough
stone mortars beside the path, and digging out from
them the refuse of old charges of powder. No one
else was to be seen.

"Vossia, can you read?" asked Saria, as we
turned to the gray little church balanced preca-
riously on a shelf of the hillside.

Her tone was one of simple inquiry, but no
sooner had I said "yes" than Ninu and Cicciu
abandoned the mortar men, though these had ar-
rived at the stage of loading in fresh charges, and
cried out with her in chorus, "Can you read this?"
pointing eager fingers towards a weather-beaten
Greek inscription over the old Byzantine-Norman
doorway.

Without waiting for an answer, they poured out
the marvel with which they were bursting: Nobocly
could read that writing! "Not even the king!" said
Cicciu. Saria giggled a little doubtfully at this as-
sertion of the king's incapacity, but the children
agreed that the letters made an incantation. If only
I could understand it and we could come to the

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 207

church again together on Christmas eve and repeat
the charm aloud, at midnight precisely, three times
without missing a word, the mountain would open
and show us heaps and heaps of gold.

"We could take as much as we wanted/' said
Saria, cutting away the prickles with Ninu's broken
knife from the artichoke she was eating.

But through the open doorway we caught sight
of something more entrancing even than enchanted
treasure. San Filippo's vara was in plain sight. The
church was not empty. We hurried inside.

It was still early afternoon. Aside from a droop-
ing woman who sat, coughing and exhausted, sur-
rounded by two or three villagers, the sacristan
and his helpers had the place to themselves. A dusty
closet above the high altar was open and the half-
length figure of the patron saint of Calatabiano
had just been taken down.

San Filippo is not a pink-cheeked boy doll like
Sant' Alfio. He is ebon black; his beard is forked
and the whites of his fiery eyes give him such a fear-
some look that Nunziata and even Saria shrank
when they saw his halo unscrewed and the unwieldy
wooden image brought towards the vara which had
been placed opposite the door.

The conveyance on which a saint is taken out of
his church in procession varies from a simple bar-
row to the towering car of Santa Rosalia of Pa-
lermo. San Filippo's vara is a substantial platform,
standing on legs and covered by a standing top in

2o8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

tarnished gilding. It is carried on the shoulders of
some thirty men by means of beams run through
sockets below its floor, projecting in front and
behind.

When San Filippo had been dusted and screwed
to his pedestal under the canopy, the sacristan
brought out his holiday vestments. San Filippo's
toilet is not elaborate like that of a woman saint —
Sant' Agata of Catania wears more jewels than did
Isis — but the taking off of his rusty every-day
chasuble and the putting on of another shining with
gold embroidery, the changing of his stole and
maniple and the refitting of his silver halo occupied
some time.

Before the process was complete people had be-
gun to arrive, bringing bunches of flowers and
young wheat — first fruits — which were tied with
red ribbons to the vara. One or two watches, a
bracelet and some rings were hung to the saint's up-
lifted hand. A woman fastened a hen with red rags
to a column, where it dropped as forlorn as the one
goose Julian the Apostate saw offered to the Apollo
of Daphne in place of hecatombs of fat oxen. The
spikes that fenced the four sides of the vara began
to blaze with candles. A weeping girl who had
climbed the hill in stockinged feet brought a wax
torch taller than herself.

Next to the vara the forlorn woman I had seen
on entering the church was the center of interest.
The villagers said she came from Messina, and that

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 209

since the hour when she was taken from under the
ruins of her house after the great earthquake she
had been unable to speak until that day. Hour after
hour in the bare little church she had mutely im-
plored San Filippo, and at last had come the sign of
liberation: All her clothes had fallen from her, so
that "to see her was a scandal." She had brought
new clothes in faith, and the by-standers had re-
clothed her piously. Now she could speak. The
dumb demon had been expelled. In gratitude for
her healing she had licked crosses with her tongue
upon the pavement three times across the floor.

In proof of this first miracle of the festa the peo-
ple showed me hanging in a side chapel, the faded
shawl and skirt and the broken shoes she had ded-
icated. Ghastly white, the poor soul affirmed, "It
is true, Signura."

Men as well as women were corning up the path,
among them young contadini in whose holiday at-
tire red neckties flamed conspicuous. Two or three
of the children were recognized as of those to be
honored by carrying San Filippo.

We climbed to Bian's ruined castle. The children
found the one piombatoio that remained above the
arched entrance, and put it to its original use, hurl-
ing down stones. The nearer hill slopes were
planted sparsely with olives and almonds and
glowed with yellow broom. To the South heaved
up the bulk of Etna, still snow-crowned, its lower
slopes dreaming under blue veils of summer haze.

2io BY-PATHS IN SICILY

To the West lay the valley of the Alcantara, whose
waters have been bloodied age after age by the
struggles of race after race — Sicanians, Siculians,
Greeks, Carthagenians, Mamertines, Byzantines,
Arabs, Normans, Spaniards, French and Germans.
To the North rose the mountains of Taormina, and
to the East the blue and silver plains of the sea.

While we lingered in that rapture of light, Saria
spied a movement below.

"Come on!" she cried. "Let us go!"

San Filippo must be making ready for his exit,
for people were swarming out of the church and
scurrying down the broken path to avoid the rush
of his bearers. We scrambled down ourselves, and
mid- way between church and village found half
the countryside massed on the abrupt slopes above
the dry torrent bed down which for half his course
the wild Mack saint must come. It had taken us per-
haps fifteen minutes to reach a place of vantage.
Cicciu and Saria climbed a rock above the heads of
the impatient throng and pulled the rest of us up
beside them. Still there was no sign from above;
but the wait was not long. At six o'clock exactly
the mortars crashed their signal. "Now!" called
eager voices. "Now!"

A minute later roared the multitude! "They're
coming !"

The vara with its thirty bearers came lurching
towards us, past us, down into the valley, reeling,
rocking, hurling itself in flying leaps, seeming to

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK an

hit the earth and rise again, a tremendous human
projectile.

There was a gasping silence; then "Viva San
Pilippu !" echoed from every rock of the mountain.
Once again the "traditional, most rapid, miraculous
descent" of the cannon-ball saint had been made in
less than five minutes. At a guess, the precipitous
descent is three-quarters of a mile.

"Fine! Eh, Vossia?" asked Cicciu. "Great!
Wasn't it?"

"A miracle !" I answered. If they reach the foot
alive, the greatest miracle San Filippo ever per-
formed !

We hurried with the crowds to the bottom of the
hill, where priests, banners and torches had awaited
the vara. The triumphal progress of San Filippo
through the village was made with slow pomp, with
bands of music blowing horns and clashing cym-
bals, with children strewing the way with golden
broom flowers and the red petals of geraniums,
with confraternita in white sacks, with priests in
golden vestments. The setting sun gilded the vara
as it moved towards the Matrice, followed by the
greater part of the population.

From the door of the mother church the vara
sprang forward with great leaps to the altar and
then back to a place in the rear, where the brown
young peasants who had vindicated the saint's
prowess and their own dropped into chairs, finger-
ing bruised shoulders where the vara beams had

2i2 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

rested, panting, wiping away the sweat that rolled
from their foreheads. Five had fallen in mid-
course. Broken ribs are not uncommon.

The vara meanwhile was taken by assault. Men
clung to its columns kissing the saint with frenzy.
Parents lifted children to kiss him. Women kissed
their fingers that had touched his vestments. Cicciu
and Saria swarmed up on to the platform and
reached down towards Nunziata.

"Take me ! Take me I" cried the baby, twitching
my skirts and speaking for the first time that after-
noon. I picked her up, but too late. Men were at
work again, unscrewing San Filippo's halo.

From the vara the black saint was carried to the
main altar and set high above us. Below him
burned candles rank on rank. In the dim church
gleamed and swayed tinsel hangings of many
colors. At the chancel rail blazed huge wax torches.
Next morning Calatabiano awoke to the boom
of cannon, the clangor of bells and the drums and
brass of parading bands. Even before sunrise, on
foot, muleback, in high two-wheeled carts, by early
trains, the countryside flocked to the fair that ac-
companies every festa, until by nine o'clock the
piazza in front of the Matrice and the narrow
streets adjoining, the center of a village of less than
5000 inhabitants, were packed with many times that
number of people.

The day proved hot, and the sellers of rainbow-

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 213

hued ices rent the air with their calls: "Like snow!
Like snow! One cent each! Cool as snow!"

From the copper pans where chick peas were
popping came the return challenge of the ciceri men.
"Hot! All hot! Hot peas here! Taste! Come and
taste! He who has money let him eat! Hot! All
hot!"

From the donkey fair beyond the bridge that
crosses the Torrente Sincona rose the braying of
asses whose mouths were wrenched open by pros-
pective buyers and of mules galloped furiously to
show their paces.

Gay carts were almost as numerous as at the festa
of Sant' Alfio. Mule saddles stuffed with straw
and covered with coarse linen were heaped in great
piles, each bastu flaming with red flannel scrolls,
figures of men and animals and signs against the
evil eye.

Sickles, broad straw hats and stacks of rushes
spoke of haying time, of the tying up of vines and
of the nearness of the grain harvest.

In the church mass succeeded mass. At the be-
ginning of each function the sacristan, armed with
a drum, beat a tattoo at the door in competition
with the horn that tooted at one side of the steps
over a barrow-load of bright summer muslins —
"Five cents a yard, women!" — and the shouts that
rose at the other side over the game of feeding the
dragon. The dragon was tall and stood on his tail.
One tucked into his mouth a ball with flattened

2i4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

numbered sides; betting, as it squirmed down
through his red and yellow contortions, on which
face it would fall at the bottom.

The church when I entered was a sea of many-
colored kerchiefs in tempest. San Filippo's empty
vara, where yesterday's flowers were fading, stood
forsaken, while men and women elbowed towards
a recess at the right of the main altar from which
came shrieks and shrill laughter. The hysteric and
insane who had been brought to the saint for the
casting out of the evil spirits that possessed them
had been present in the church during the earlier
masses; but now before high mass they were being
removed.

When the sacristy door had shut behind them
and quiet was restored I found sitting beside me
two dainty little girls who radiated such bliss that
I hinted how "simpatici" I thought their new blue
dresses. They preened themselves, spreading out
pink scarfs and turning up the toes of white shoes;
and presently, while San Filippo glared in the
candle light and the lean sacristan wormed his per-
sistent way between close-set rows of chairs in quest
of his lawful soldi, they began to chatter about
"Babbu" who had sent the money for all these
pretty things. Perhaps I had bought meat of Babbu,
since I was " 'Murricana" and he a butcher in New
York. Babbu had been gone seven years, but he
never forgot new dresses or wax for the day of
San Filippo.

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 215

They pointed out to me Mamma's wax torch
among the many blazing at the rail. More than a
meter tall it was, and trimmed with roses and red
ribbons. After mass they would help her carry it
home, to light in case of illness. The flowers, too,
they would save to lay on the bed of a sick person.
Next May, perhaps, Mamma would melt on more
wax to the torch and lengthen it to offer again.

"Mamma," who sat beyond the children, looked
so uneasy and the sacristy door remained so ob-
stinately shut that I abandoned mass in quest of
luncheon. The little shops turned for the day into
eating-houses put out hard boiled eggs, sheep's-milk
cheese and round brown loaves of bread on small
stands as signs. The one table was occupied in the
room down into which I ventured — its floor of
broken bricks was below ground level ; but the stout
padrona, whose big hoops of earrings swung with
the vigor of her movements, set a plate for me on
the shelf of her American sewing machine.
At the other end of it seated himself an old "hair-
foot" wearing the homespun and the hairy sandals
of the mountains. Setting down his stick, engraved
by a patient knife with men on horseback and stiff
be-aproned ladies, he pulled out a lump of bread
and called for two soldi worth of wine.

Service was rapid, for just inside the street door,
not three steps from the table, stood the cookstove.
Once it had been a petroleum tin; but wires run
through its middle made a fire rack, a vent had

216 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

been cut below ; and, mounted on the box in which
it had traveled from Texas, it seemed on terms of
old friendship with the terra cotta cooking pot
where simmered a stew of kid and peas.

At the other side of the door stood the family
bed, the mattress of which, rolled up for the day,
left half the length of three wide planks as a side-
board for bread, lettuce, plates and other nec-
essaries.

The short brown men at the main table, who
might have been itinerant venders — the gypsy folk
who gather at every fair — had the squinting eyes,
the deeply lined faces and the faded dust-gray
clothes of men who live under a powerful sun. They
ate fast and much, swallowing wine from the carafe
and haggling over every soldo.

"Eat like Christians and pay like Christians !" ad-
monished the padrona, not once but often; for
when the first were gone there came others, and yet
others like them, so that the padrona went to mar-
ket, bringing back yards of white butcher's waste
to follow the kid into the pot for a stew of tripe and
entrails.

Luncheon over, exit from the shop was blocked
for a time by the crowds that gathered about a
strolling auctioneer who set goggles on the eyes of
every purchaser to enable him the better to admire
his bargain.

The streets were as gay as the shifting scenes
of a kaleidoscope with the orange, blue, green and

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 217

red that blossomed together in the dresses of the
dark, oval-faced women as naturally as flowers in
gardens.

In the piazza "La Sonnambula" was heralded by
the tooting horn and raucous voice of her exploiter
as "Paula the privileged, born at midnight before
the day of San Paulo! Paula who has a spider
under her tongue ! Paula who cannot mistake ! Paula
who sees your past, present and future !"

Paula, who was a girl just entering her teens,
slept to order for two soldi wherever she happened
to be standing.

On the steps of the church, blinder than the day
before, blind Ninu was begging. Cicciu, who led
him, interrupted his cry of "Blind! A poor blind
boy! Charity for the dear sake of the Madonna!"
to greet me with a gleeful, "What a crowd,
Signura!"

In the dim cool church there were not a hundred
people; but I had not sat long in the restful quiet
before there came a stir at the door of the sacristy.
The "spiritati," whom people oftener call "li spirdi,"
were coming back to San Filippo.

In other years, when the last mass had been said
and the curious crowds were scattering, I have
seen "li spirdi" and the old women who are, as in
all time they have been, specialists in exorcism take
possession of the church. I have seen the coaxings,
the threatenings and the physical violence which are
supposed to influence evil spirits, going forward in

218 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

half a dozen places at once ; before the altar, beside
the vara, wherever the various groups of exorcists
and their patients might find themselves. But this
afternoon the manner was different.

Marshaled by priests and sacristan, a little pro-
cession moved decorously across the church, paus-
ing to bend the knee before the altar, then continu-
ing towards the recess which the "possessed" had
occupied in the morning. Across the mouth of an
open chapel a fence of benches had been drawn;
but before the group had passed behind the bar-
rier a disheveled woman, breaking away from her
conductors, stumbled uncertainly through the
church an instant, then ran toward the nearest door.
There was a glimpse of a heavy, sullen face, of
rough hair and a dirty white dress, then up came
the sacristan and a hurrying swarm of people.

"Ugly devil!" shrieked the guardian old woman
who retook the distracted creature in charge. "You
will not kiss the saint? Birbante! You will not
speak? You would run away?

"Kiss San Filippu!" she cajoled, changing tone.
"Shout 'Viva San Filippu!' My joy! My jewel! My
heart ! Pray ! Pray with all your soul ! Kiss San
Filippu!" she held up a penny icon.

To kiss the figura of the saint and to shout vivas
are a sine qua non of exorcism.

The woman jerked away her head. She would
not kiss the picture. She would not look at it. The
crone became a fury. Taking the younger woman

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 219

by the shoulders, she shook her, screeching, "Ugly
devil! Kiss San Filippu! Cry 'Viva San Filippu!'
Ugly one I"

The people swarmed close like bees, weeping
aloud, begging the woman to kiss the saint, catch-
ing her by the arms, by the dress, imploring her to
cry "Viva San Filippu I" The old woman continued
to shake her, again pleading, "My love, my treasure,
kiss San Filippu! Kiss the saint!"

The woman's hair tumbled over her shoulders
and her shawl fell to the floor. She would not kiss
the figura and she would not speak; but after a
little she allowed herself to be led, scowling, back
to the chapel.

Here, behind the row of benches, huddled five
women. How often men are brought to San Filippo
I do not know. I never have seen one. Two of the
five, whom the people crowding in front of the bar-
rier nicknamed "the twins," sat squeezed together,
one short and dark, the other a big, round-faced
blonde, neither far removed from idiocy.

The oldest of the five was a gray woman of more
than fifty years. Her stringy hair pushed plainly
back, her high cheekbones and brown channeled
skin, her tight faded bodice and full gathered skirt
were not unlike those of twenty other women in the
building. Nor did anything in her manner mark
her off from them, except an occasional smile made
sinister by a lift of the upper lip at one side, show-
ing a fang. Under the altar of San Giorgio she

220 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

sat, smiling and malign. The gossiping crowd
called her " 'a jatta," the cat.

There was another of whom the gossips spoke as
"she of the lovely face." The loveliest thing about
her was a mass of dark hair that fell nearly to the
ground as she sat, veiling her worn and faded cloth-
ing— red skirt, blue apron, green bodice. Mechanic-
ally, her eyes fixed on vacancy, she rubbed a pic-
ture of the saint over her head without ceasing.

Backed into a corner, the poor creature who had
run the gauntlet remained impassive, save for heavy
defiant eyes that watched for another chance of
escape. At her the people shuddered, whispering,
"She would not kiss the saint!" They called her
" 'a 'Murricana" — the American; and said she had
in her the spirit of a wicked man who had been
murdered. Her husband had brought her all the
way from New York to San Filippo, but the Amer-
ican spirit did not understand Italian, and there was
little chance of her liberation.

In popular opinion the spirits that invade the
bodies of such unfortunates are mostly of the mur-
dered and of those cut off before their time; souls
that wander through the air causing storms and
seeking homes in other human bodies because they
cannot find rest until the appointed hour. Since the
earthquake at Messina with its holocaust of vic-
tims the number of such errant demons has been
fearfully multiplied.

Behind the barrier with the five possessed ones

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 221

were the priests who had officiated at high mass,
the sacristan, the old woman who had recaptured
u 'a 'Murricana" — a sinewy crone with scant white
hair and a white kerchief open to her waist; and
two other ancient dames, less active, whose ker-
chiefs were like flower gardens.

For a long time little happened. People who had
rushed into the church at the reappearance of the
possessed strolled out again. A plump middle-aged
priest returned to the sacristy. Two others, thin
young peasants, went and came aimlessly. The
archpriest, a thick-set man of more than sixty,
paced up and down before a great crucifix, a benev-
olent, white-haired figure, not too intelligent, bored
apparently, awaiting like the rest of us the events
of the afternoon.

A little boy found his way into the choir and
threw himself on his knees, alternately kissing a
picture of the saint and shrilling, "Viva San Fi-
lippu !" People said he might be trying to "stir up
the saint."

And still the possessed women sat quiet. The two
old women who seemed to be under-mistresses of
ceremonies held icons before the lips of "the twins"
without visible results, except that the wretched
girls, moaning and babbling, wept their swollen
faces yet more sodden.

The people in the church fretted audibly. Why
was nothing done? Why were not the possessed
made to call upon the saint? Were the evil spirits

222 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

so much at ease in San Filippo's presence that they
did not even stamp? Why were not the women
shaken? Spirits do not issue for an "if you please."

While matters were thus at a standstill, the thin,
grasshopper sacristan leaped over the benches, the
ribbons of his black tie streaming, his arms flung
above his head as if he himself were bewitched.
Storming at a group of on-lookers, he drove them
out at the church door. Relatives of one of the poor
creatures, said the people. San Filippo is powerless
in presence of a spiritata's — suppliant's — family.
What wonder nothing had been accomplished!

And now, indeed, "she of the beautiful face"
stopped rubbing the saint's picture over her hair.
Starting from her seat and thrusting aside the old
women, she began to whirl up and down the space
behind the barrier, slowly at first, then spinning
like a dancing dervish. With every round her
shrieks grew louder and her pace became more
dizzy until at last she dropped to the floor.

The archpriest calmly brought water. Two of the
old women lifted her and helped her to a chair. The
head old woman incited her with wild gesticula-
tions. Almost at once she was on her feet again,
stretching her arms towards the black saint above
the altar and screaming, "Viva San Filippu!"

"Louder ! Louder !" exhorted the old women and
the sacristan. She began to beat the floor with her
feet, stamping rhythmically to the shouted words,
"Vi-va! Vi-va! Vi-va San Filip-pur

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 223

It was for this the people had been waiting. "She
stamps!" they said delightedly. "The stamping be-
gins!" At last the demon in the woman felt the
saint's power. All day in church it must have been
uneasy. It had made her dance, and now it was
stamping. "She is freed!" flew from mouth to
mouth. No one had been liberated for the whole
day, but now at last the work was beginning. Men
and women came running into the church. They
pushed and thrust to reach the barrier. They el-
bowed and kicked. They climbed on chairs. They
began to shout with "the pretty one," "Vi-va! Vi-
va! Vi-va San Filip-pu!"

The cry that began uncertainly with three or four
voices was taken up by hundreds ; and presently the
sacristan, springing again on one of the benches
that fenced the chapel from the rest of the church,
began waving his long, windmill arms at us and
shouting like a cheer-leader at a football game.
"Now then, boys, all together — Vi-va! Vi-va! Vi-va
San Filip-pu!"

Swinging half around towards the woman, he
urged her, "Stronger! Stronger! — Vi-va! Vi-va!
Vi-va San Filip-pu!"

And so, marking time with his lean black rock-
ing body, he led the excited crowd in a chant the
beat of which became ever more pronounced until
the roof shook.

The paroxysm did not cease until the woman
once more fell heavily. The three witches lifted her

224 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

and the archpriest brought wine. There was a
period of consultation, and then Catina — as eager
voices began to say that "she of the beautiful face"
was named — was urged to try again. She rose to
her feet, and the sacristan, still acting as cheer-
leader, inciting her with waving arms and "Force !
Force !" as she beat the floor, and us with "Shout,
boys! Louder !" recommenced his measured cry
more frantically than before.

Of a sudden he interrupted himself. "Get down
from the chairs, boys! Stop breaking the chairs !"

He wriggled through the crowd, pulling people
from the cane seats of the church property, to which
at once they climbed back again. In the confusion
the archpriest cuffed the nearest boys. Two "cara-
binieri" who had been in the church throughout the
afternoon forced people back from the line of
benches which had become as crooked as a worm
fence.

After a minute the archpriest sprayed Catina
with holy water, and the three old women took
places beside and behind her, shouting with the
sacristan now returned from his excursion, "Vi-
va ! Vi-va ! Vi-va San Filippu !"

At length Catina sank into her chair, where she
fell to weeping and to rubbing the picture again
over her hair.

This scene had been repeated perhaps three or
four times when I left the church for a breath of
air. Half an hour later on my return the heat was

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 225

more stifling and the sweltering mob more closely
packed than before. It was not possible again to
approach the freed ones; but an old acquaintance
who haunts the fairs of Eastern Sicily, little Lucia,
a beggar child without hands, beckoned me to a
perch beside her on the high base of a column.

'The Signura will be crushed," she said, smil-
ing at me like a hostess, "down there among the
'popolazione'."

Catina sat drooping in her chair. The archpriest
had taken off his purple stole, and was holding the
embroidered cross to her lips. He put the stole upon
her shoulders. He seemed to speak encouragingly.
Then the old women led her forward and the rhyth-
mic pounding and shouting recommenced.

Of a sudden Catina stopped in her chant. Start-
ing from her place between the old women, she
staggered towards the barrier, lifting her arms and
livid face towards the gleaming eyes and forked
beard above the altar.

"Do it now, San Filippu !" she implored as if her
tormented demons were speaking through her. "Do
it quickly! We are ready! Show thy mercy!"

She opened her mouth and spat violently.

The crowd was hushed. Excitement touched
hysteria.

"Quick, San Filippu!" she repeated. "We are
ready ! Grant us this grace !" Again she spat, shud-
dering and swaying; writhing as if she would cast
out her very soul.

226 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"Out with it!" squeaked the head witch. "Spit
it out! Out of her, Satan, in the name of San
Filippu!"

"They go !" groaned Catina, spitting convulsively.
"They are going!"

"They are gone !" Gasping, she dropped into the
arms of the old women.

"Liberata!" It was not a word, it was a vast
sigh of relief that went up from the church. Like
the Messalians of old who spat and blew their noses
without ceasing, to rid themselves of the devils that
filled them, so Catina had cast out her devils at her
mouth; and more than one of the spectators snap-
ped his own shut, not to afford them refuge. The
old women stroked and patted her, helping her to
a seat, adjusting her dress and smoothing her
tangled hair.

Yet something like a chill seemed to damp the
audience. Carina's clothing had not fallen. If the
spirits really had been cast out, why had they not,
in leaving, torn off her clothes? She should have
been left naked ! Was there not a sheet in readiness
on the altar of San Giorgio? Spirits do not go out
so decently. So the people reasoned, doubting the
miracle. They were hardly persuaded even when
the sacristan, climbing up behind the altar, hung to
the saint's hand a thank-offering of two fine old
earrings.

Catina was a widow, little Lucia told me; she

SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 227

had three children, and could spare little except her
earrings in return for liberation.

After some minutes she came out alone from the
chapel, walking unsteadily to the chancel gate. Her
long hair had been bound up, and a red ribbon —
"the measure of the saint" — hung about her neck.
She knelt on the altar steps and repeated aloud a
formula of thanks to San Filippo. Then she passed
wearily on to the sacristy.

All the spring was gone out of the tired sacristan.
Half-heartedly he helped the old women conduct
the sullen one and "the American" in front of the
main altar. One smiled at the saint her malignant
smile, the other refused to look at him, and pres-
ently both were taken away together with "the
twins." The crowds were dispersing.

"Signura, I go," said Lucia, putting up the stump
of an arm to brush away a lock of her bright, pretty
hair.

"I, too, am going," I answered.

I left Lucia at work on the steps of the church,
where Ninu and Cicciu still clamored, "Help the
blind!" There were to be fireworks that evening
and a band concert. For Ninu and for Lucia fes-
tival days are days of harvest.

CHAPTER IV
The Miracles of Sant' Alfio

(Paul had) shorn his head in Cenchrea, for he had a
vow.— Acts XVIII.

To some of these deities the Egyptians give thanks for
recovering their children from sickness, as by shaving their
heads and weighing the hair with the like weight of gold
or silver; and then giving the money to them that have the
care of the beasts.— Diodorus Siculus.

Alfio, Filadelfo and Cirino were Christian
brothers persecuted under Decian and Valerian.
Persisting in their faith, they were set to carry
from Taormina to Lentini a heavy beam fastened
across their shoulders. Near the hamlet now called
Sant' Alfio, above Giarre, a whirlwind caught away
the beam into midair. The soldiers of the escort
stopped with their prisoners at Trecastagne to rest
and recover from fear. Arrived at Lentini, the three
brothers were martyred by Tertullus, commander of
the garrison. Alfio suffered the pulling out of his
tongue; Filadelfo was broiled on a gridiron; Cirino
boiled in a caldron of pitch.

The martyrs were taken as patrons by the towns
of Sant' Alfio, Trecastagne and Lentini, each of

228

THE MIRACLES OF SANT1 ALFIO 229

which celebrates a festa in their honor for three
days, beginning with the tenth of May. The festa
at Trecastagne, the largest spring festival in East-
ern Sicily, is mainly in honor of Sant' Alfio, the only
miracle-worker of the three.

Sant' Alfio stood up under the beam, while his
brothers crouched. Thus he became ruptured, and
acquired the power to heal rupture. He lost his
tongue, and gives speech to the dumb. With Sant'
Agata of Catania he protects the mountain villages
from Etna ; and, as do many saints, he watches over
emigrants at sea.

Like Demeter "of the big loaf" — of the full din-
ner pail — a modern saint who influences weather
and crops, or who heals the sick, is sure of votaries.
"He is too miraculous," say my friends who fear
Sant? Alfio. "It is a pain to see his miracles. He is
a saint who makes himself respected for sure."

Agatina's grandmother did not approve of the
levity with which Agatina and I prepared for our
trip to Trecastagne. Agatina's nonna is a dignified
old woman who, like the saint, makes herself re-
spected. She had been buying "ox-eyes" of a pass-
ing fisherman, choosing those best speckled with
red, and still sat in the doorway of the antiquities
p, the little shining fishes in a plate on her lap,
while she glanced up and down the Corso observ-
ing the news of the morning.

Near her house in Catania there lived fifteen
years ago, she told us, a man who was paralyzed.

23o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

On the eve of the festa of Sant' Alfio, as this man
lay in his bed praying, there appeared to him a
stranger clothed in white, who asked what ailed
him, and who rubbed him with an ointment, after
which the paralytic got up and walked. The stranger
was Sant' Alfio.

"In the days of to-day the saints no longer ap-
pear to men, because there is no faith; we others
are not worthy," she concluded, re-tying the knot
of her purple and white head-kerchief, and rising
heavily to carry the fish indoors. "We are not
children of the saints, like our ancients."

The old woman's disapproval checked our light-
mindedness. I had been teasing Agatina for put-
ting on her pretty gray spring dress with its lace
blouse and the plumed hat that framed her delicate
face so becomingly. "There will be more than
30,000 people," I said; "why try to make a figure?
Sant' Alfio won't see your finery."

Agatina declared mysteriously that she was a
practical woman.

That evening, when we reached the house of
Agatina's parents in Catania, her stout, child-
burdened, good-humored mother, after scattering
her family to Catania's great fish-market to buy our
supper, to the bed-rooms to turn down our beds, to
the dining-room and the kitchen, found time, as she
tied on her work-apron, to disapprove of our trip
even more thoroughly than had the grandmother.

"Capers and clover!" she exclaimed. That two

THE MIRACLES OF SANT* ALFIO 231

women should start for Trecastagne at two o'clock
in the morning along with the riff-raff who would
be swarming up the long road in the darkness, how
was Pippinu thinking?

She cuffed Alficddu, the sticky-fingered three-
year-old who clung to her skirts, instead of cuffing
me; ejaculating as he screamed, "Mary Mother,
what torment! He drives me into hysterics !"

"Listen," laughed Agatina; "how Mamma is
jesting 1"

Agatina had telegraphed Pippinu, her husband,
for permission to come with me to the festa; but
from the depths of Calabria, where he had gone
with a gun for quail and bad Christians and an eye
for old furniture to sell to tourists, Pippinu had
not answered. This lack we concealed.

On his return from the fish market, Agatina's
sensible, middle-aged father brought, in addition to
our supper, the driver he had chosen for our car-
riage ; and while the red meaty slices of tunny fish
were cooking, he instructed Santu not to race his
horse, and not to bring us back next day by the high-
way, where the traditional "return cf the drunk-
ards" would be in full swing. We were to take a
quiet side road, and we were to have as escort
Agatina's seventeen-year-old brother, Michellinu.

At this Michellinu looked bored. Later, while one
sister was brushing Agatina's long hair, and an-
other was censoring my Sicilian, my friend excused
her brother. "£ appassionatu," she said; "he's

232 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

very much in love. We others are live flames."
We Sicilians, that is to say.

"He doesn't look it," said the younger sister.
"Signora, say 'tri' ; ah, you can't do it; no one but
a Sicilian born can pronounce Sicilian! Signora,
try again ; say 'tri !' "

At two o'clock in the morning, when the sound
of horses' hoofs roused us from brief rest, Michel-
linu did not look a live flame ; even a boy of seven-
teen cannot, when he is sleepy.

Below in the darkness our carrozzella was wait-
ing. Somewhere in the distance sounded revolver
shots. 'The gallants," volunteered Santu; "the
young bloods are starting up their horses."

As we moved towards Catania's main street,
shouts and the rapid fire of crackers became louder.
Once on the Via Stesicoro Etnea, the jingle of
bells, the snapping of whips, the rattle of tam-
bourines, even the gun fire, were merged in the con-
fused roar of thousands of people. Half Catania
was keeping vigil. The broad street was packed
with carts and carriages three and four abreast, all
moving in one direction, straight towards Etna. It
was a dark stream of which one could not see
the end.

The carriages were overloaded with people able
to hire them. Two-wheeled carretti carried ten or
a dozen each of "little people," men, women, chil-
dren and babies, laughing, beating drums and shak-
ing tambourines, waving flaring torches, discharging

THE MIRACLES OF SANT ALFIO 233

pistols close to the horses' ears. The sidewalks were
jammed with other thousands jostling forward,
shouting.

"Viva Sant' Aaaaarnu!" was the bellow that im-
posed itself through the din.

Catania had gone mad, as it does every year on
the evening of the tenth of May. Santu turned
cautiously into the torrent.

"There will be a horse dance all the way"; had
said Agatina's wise old father ; and indeed the play
of whips as each driver lashed his crazed team to
force it ahead of the one in front threatened some-
thing worse than a dance of horses. The hospitals
are busy after the race to the shrine of Sant' Alfio.

Beyond the city and its suburbs, on the long
straight course into the foothills, the scene was wild.
Though the stars were bright, it was dark between
the high walls that shut away vineyards and lemon
gardens ; all the darker for the yellow glare of cane
torches that flamed on straining horses and black,
swaying figures as the galloping procession, carriage
after carriage, cart by cart, lurched past us.

"May your horse drop dead, cold as a pear!"
growled Michellinu, rousing himself. "Can't
he go?"

"He is l'Allegru, the Lively," said Santu stolidly.
"Forty lire were offered me to let a young fellow
race him to-night; but I'm too fond of him. He'll
be in at the finish, without dripping blood like these
others. Shall we bet on it?"

234 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Michellinu wound a shawl about his head and
lapsed into gloom.

We were climbing steadily. It was cold. Agatina
had left in Catania her fine frock, and was wearing
the common one her practical mind had hidden
under it. A black head scarf and heavy black shawl
had turned her into a brilliantly pretty contadina.

"Michellinu is cross,,, she answered Santu; "be-
cause he didn't want to come. But — here comes an-
other caravan of the nudes!"

At every stiff grade where we slowed to a walk,
groups of "nudi" passed us at a trot. They were
not moving in great bands, as I have seen them at
the f esta of San Sebastiano at Melilli ; but by tens
or twenties. Except for a red or white loin sash,
some were literally naked, as was David when he
danced before the Lord girded with a linen ephod ;
or as were the Bedouins when they made the sacred
circle of the Ca'aba in the days before Mahomet.
Some added to the red sash short white cotton
breeches. Some wore a sleeveless shirt, as well as
drawers and streaming ribbons. A few wore their
ordinary clothing with the red band draped from
one shoulder under the opposite arm. Almost all
were barefooted. When the head was not bare, it
was covered by a white kerchief knotted like a
turban.

Each was making his pilgrimage as he had vowed
it; "dressed nude" as the phrase is, or simply bare-

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 235

footed. Each carried his monstrous candle, trimmed
with flowers and broad red ribbons.

Each group moved past us at a lunging run, look-
ing neither to the right nor the left, panting with
dry throats, "Viva Sant' Aaaaarnu!" Their breath
came in gasps. They pumped out the words. One
man was a mute who moaned grotesque, inarticu-
late cries. One man limped; he had hurt his foot,
yet not for that did he give over the vow he had
sworn — eight miles, involving more than 1,800 feet
of ascent, without slackening pace to Trecastagne.

One of the "nudes" was not running; he walked
beside his wife, a small woman in black whose hair
streamed loose over her shoulders. He carried a
torcia decked with red rosettes, she a red-rosetted
baby.

There were many women who walked, like
Petronius's Roman matrons when they prayed Jove
for water, "up the hill in their stoles with bare feet
and loosened hair." But the greater number of
these Catanese matrons, even when they let down
their dark braids and made their pilgrimage with
disordered hair, removed from the feet their shoes
only, and walked in stockings.

Horses continued to pound past at a furious pace,
the flags and tall pheasants' plumes that rose from
their heads wig- wagging, their fly-nets, covered with
red, white and yellow artificial flowers, slapping
madly. L' Allegru was not so fine ; Santu had put

236 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

no holiday touches to his harness beyond his gay
little bells.

It was the mules and horses drawing the painted
Sicilian carts whose trappings put us most sadly to
shame. Not a harness showed a hint of leather.
Many a man had spent the savings of months on
the mirrored panaches of vari-colored plumage that
towered from back and head piece, and on capari-
sons that made the carter's mule as gorgeous as the
steeds of Rinaldo and Charlemagne, whose knightly
exploits were pictured on his cart. In tinsel and
spangles, flashing with mirrors and vivid with
isinglass, were wrought scrolls, arabesques, double-
headed eagles, knights' heads and cherubs that
glittered with every toss of head or lift of hoof,
and housed the animals till they looked weighed
down by their own splendor.

We reached a low black village crouching in the
lavas of Etna. There were lights in the doorways,
where people had gathered to see us pass. "The
first stage," said Agatina, as we came to a wine shop
the door of which was wreathed with ivy and fresh
lemon boughs. Over the door were hung round
loaves of bread. In front were tables set with coffee
cups. Many a man threw himself exhausted on the
ground to rest while eating.

At the watering trough was a mix-up of horses'
heads and legs in the dance to approach. "Some
dispute might arise," said Santu, as, to Michellinu's
disgust, he kept l'Allegru still in the rear.

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 237

(Jp and up the dark, narrow road we climbed.
The scent of lemon and orange flowers no longer
drifted over the walls. We had reached the vine-
yards of the terre forti, Sicily's strong lands. The
"nudi" overtook us on every rise; on every descent
we left them behind. They had no breath left.
Painfully they wheezed, "Sa-ant' A-a-rfiu!"

Imperceptibly the sky paled. In the East there
came a faint red streak under the waning, just-risen
moon. Overhead the heavens were blanching to
white. The West sulked blacker than before. From
the moment of the start Mungibeddu (Etna) had
loomed across our path, a ghostly shape ; now it ap-
peared a sharp-cut silhouette against the sky. There
came a cold dawn light over the snows of the moun-
tain and in the blue air. The procession of carts
and carriages looked interminable. The red streak
in the sky widened. Below us the quiet sea was the
color of steel.

We began to see more clearly the villages we
passed, with here and there a fondaco lighted for
the sale of bread, wine, bran and hay. We met
beggars, the one-armed and one-legged, the blind
and the dumb, who swarm at every festa. A
cripple who had vowed to the saint a wax leg if he
should be healed carried on a tray his "miracle"
while he begged money to pay for it.

The "nudi" quickened their pace. Their shirts
were gray with dust. Their eyes stuck out blood-
shot.

238 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Trecastagne was just ahead. We could see the
jagged skyline of its houses and church spires. On
each side of the way were now "sons of Etna," as
the human sons of the volcano call the many erup-
tive cones it has flung out upon its sides. Those
near us, dead for ages, seemed alive once more,
shining with the green flame of wheat.

It was well before sun-up when we reached the
foot of the steep incline at the entrance to the
village. Here in the old days the racers tied the
fore legs of their horses before beginning the last
frantic dash to greet Sant' Alfio. That custom is
gone, but the mad race continues.

Horse after horse struggled past us, sobbing for
breath, streaked with bloody lather; the driver on
his feet, swaying, swinging the lash and screaming.
Just in front a nervous white horse, fretted by his
housings, and his two towering panaches, balked,
blocking the way. The whip rained cuts on his
bleeding flanks, and he bolted. Behind us the mo-
ment's halt had brought up half a hundred vehicles
with their babel of bells, cracking whips, shouts and
gunfire.

To this point TAllegru had come sleek and cool.
Now for the first time Santu's whip sang in air, and
he bent forward, calling softly, "Let's be going !"
L'Allegru took the hill at the head of the mob.

Michellinu's head poked out from under the folds
of the gray shawl. Casting it from him, he scram-
bled upon his seat, holding to Santu's shoulders and

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 239

shrieking to the horse, "Ah ccaa ! Ah ccaa ! Car-
ried ! Ah, ccaa I" At every team we passed his
fingers made the derisive sign of the horns.

"Get down, Michellinu!" called his sister; but to
me she said proudly, "A live flame, isn't he?"

And so we entered Trecastagne, scattering holi-
day crowds, endangering the street stands of
hawkers, rocking from side to side, galloping to
the very church door.

"Is your Lordship satisfied?" asked Santu yet
more softly, stroking l'Allegru's nose.

"He can go," grunted Michellinu, falling back
into indifference.

Early as it was, the piazza could not hold its
swarming multitudes. The place was like a great
camp of gypsies waking to the business of the morn-
ing. Fortune tellers, merry-go-rounds and gam-
bling games were in full swing. A moving picture
show was hanging out Tripoli war posters. We
stopped to look at nothing, but went at once to the
church of Sant' Alfio.

The building was of some size, though of no
architectural pretensions. From the doorway it
looked as if entrance would be impossible. Thou-
sands of people had left their homes in distant
villages at sunset of the previous evening, and had
been kneeling before the high altar since the church
opened at midnight. The press to reach the altar
rail was suffocating. The church was hot, and
echoed with the confused noise of men and women

24o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

moving about, weeping, praying aloud. The air
was heavy with candle reek and incense.

We could see but little. Columns and walls were
hung with the gaudy paraments of tinseled paper
which in days of festa degrade the decent white
plaster of Sicilian village churches. These were the
usual heavy draperies in elemental colors — red, blue,
yellow and green, spangled and gilt-bordered, gleam-
ing darkly in the shadows where the flame of the
great altar candles did not penetrate.

Near the door by which we stood the walls were
covered with votive pictures, perhaps like those
which Juvenal had in mind when he said that
Roman painters got their living out of Isis. All
were small, some dim with age, some fresh with
colors not six months old. Here, painted on tin
or wood, were sick men spitting blood or dying
with cholera; here were a soldier wounded at
Misurata in a Tripoli campaign ; a man saved from
the Messina earthquake ; a house saved from Etna ;
a ship saved from wreck near New Orleans. Each
scene was sketched with the crudest realism, and
bore name, date and description of the miracle.

Above and beside the pictures hung wax ex-voti,
models of legs and arms, throats and stomachs,
gruesome with red marks of wounds or pits of dis-
ease; "the price and pay for those cures which the
god hath wrought/' says Livy of just such objects
that hung in the temples of Esculapius. Behind
the ears of a wax head clung wax leeches.

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 241

A column near us was hung with children's cloth-
ing; straw hats and caps, little breeches and petti-
coats, offered to Sant' Alfio for the healing of the
infants, as to San Sebastiano of Melilli, San Calo-
gero of Girgenti and many other saints of Sicily.
Beside the column stood a table where two priests
were selling penny pictures of the saints. From
the high altar to the main doorway ran a railway
for the processional exit of the "vara," the saints'
car.

Little by little we edged our way towards the
front of the church where flowers, flung over the
chancel rail by almost everyone who entered, lay
in heaps at the foot of the altar. Beside a table to
the left of the chancel stood a stout sacristan re-
ceiving offerings. As we approached he held up a
watch with dangling chains, and the church shook
with vivas.

Next came a ruptured baby. The sacristan took
it in his arms, laid it on the floor among the flowers,
and then held it up, bare legs kicking, to show thatj
the flesh had closed and the rupture was no longer
visible.

A mother placed on the table her little girl, and
stripped off green skirt, pink waist and yellow ker-
chief until the mite stood before us naked. The sac-
ristan, expressionless as a sheep, received the bun-
dle, while the mother reclothed in a fresh dress the
little one, now free, according to tradition, of all
trouble.

242 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

At my side a woman held a red-frocked baby.
"An idiot," said another neighbor in my ear; she
asked the mother, "Was the miracle made?"

"Not yet," came the sighing answer.

Two mutes were flinging up their arms and writh-
ing in frenzied struggle to call upon the saint, the
expected sign of liberation being the power to speak
his name. Tears rolled down their cheeks. Their
inarticulate cries rose above every other noise; an
agonized "uh, uh, uh, uh!"

Beside one of them, a man seemed to stretch with
his whole body towards the great golden doors
above the high altar, behind which in their niche the
saints were still hidden. He was thin and worn-
looking, shabbily dressed. Clasping his hands high
in air, he moaned without ceasing. "Sant' Arfiu!
Do me the miracle ! Liberate my son ! Sant' Arfiu !"

Our neighbors said that one of the mutes was
his only child.

There was a sudden stir in the church. We were
flung back with a violent wave movement as the
throng gave place before the entrance of a group
of "nudi." Shouting they ran, their candles flaring
as they swopped past us to the altar, where their
yells of "Sant' Arfiu! Viva Sant' Arfiu!" made
the roof ring. Their brown faces lined and hag-
gard, shirts dripping sweat, their quivering bodies
painted with the red of their sashes they stood
triumphant, casting down flowers, holding up huge
torches to the sacristan.

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 243

I wondered then, I wonder now, how Columbus
dressed when he carried his "wax taper of five
pounds" to St. Mary of Guadaloupe after his escape
from shipwreck returning from the discovery of
America.

As the men disappeared in the admiring care of
relatives, a blue-clad girl of eight or nine was lifted
over the rail, struggling and holding out her arms
to be taken back again. Her father bade her kneel,
and she did as she was bidden, looking about wildly
for a familiar face, her plump cheeks streaked with
dirt where her fingers continued to rub away tears.
Women sobbed as loud as she, saying one to an-
other, "She has no speech, poor little thing."

The girl's mother fought past us with frantic feet
and elbows, shrieking, "My child is frightened!
Let me pass! Let me pass! My child is afraid!"

She dropped on her knees at the chancel rail, but
we did not see what happened, for there came an-
other wave of excited movement in the church.

"They are making the vow of the tongue!" said
Agatina, dragging me with her toward the rails laid
for the wheels of the processional car.

Up the track constructed for the vara from the
doorway to the altar there came a man who walked
slowly backward, flicking with a handkerchief the
pavement grimed with the tread of thousands. Be-
hind him crawled one of the "nudes" on hands and
knees, painfully licking crosses on the floor. His
movement from doorway to altar was blind and

244 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

wavering. After each slow forward grope there
came a pause; one wondered if he would have
strength to proceed.

The people pressed close to the track crying hys-
terically, "Bravu, son! Courage! Courage! An-
other little and we are there !"

"Back ! Back !" called others. "Don't you see he
is suffocating ?"

Inch by inch the man lapped his way towards the
chancel. Behind him came a second and a third.
There were seven in line. Earlier in the morning
at one time there had been ten. One or two were
supported by a knotted kerchief passed under the
neck and held by a friend.

Staggering dizzily to his feet at the altar rail,
the first man tottered a minute, staring about him,
stammering thickly, "Viva Sant' Arfiu!" The
building echoed and re-echoed with the answering
shout. Then, wiping with a handkerchief his
swollen tongue, he lurched to one side and dis-
appeared.

When all seven had passed there came a gray
haired woman in black, who looked nearer sixty
than fifty years of age. So slowly that it seemed as
if she could never finish, wandering from the track
in spite of the guiding rails, trembling from ex-
haustion, she fulfilled her vow. Her mouth was
full of blood as friendly hands lifted her.

Agatina had turned very white; she whispered,
"Shall we go?"

THE MIRACLES OF SANT ALFIO 245

Not far behind us a woman had begun to flourish
scissors. A younger woman at her side had taken
off her white head kerchief, and was fumbling with
hairpins. Down fell two long dark braids. A
minute later the scissors were laboring close to the
younger woman's head. The hair was thick; we
could hear the grinding of the blades. Presently
there came away one of the tresses. Its owner
coiled and pinned what hair remained, and hid her
disfigurement under the kerchief. Then she tied
the severed braid with a red ribbon and gave it to
the sacristan, who held it up for exhibiton.

There had appeared at the altar a young, red-
cheeked priest in golden vestments who gave com-
munion to kneeling devotees. One such brought a
candle so heavy that only with great effort could
he lift it. It was fully two meters long and thicker
than a man's leg. Its owner was taken over the rail
with it. "Any more? Is there any other?" the
priest was calling, holding up his wafer, as, cling-
ing together, we reached the open air.

It was not seven o'clock. We had been in the
church only two hours, yet we have gone back to the
times when Julius Caesar crawled on hands and knees
up the steps of the Capital to appease Nemesis.

In the piazza the crowd had become so dense that
it was almost as hard to move about as indoors. The
square was of some size, surrounded by the small
gray-plaster houses of a Sicilian village. It was
given over to hawkers and hucksters, for the festa

246 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

presents the same medley of religion, trade, athletics
and amusement that constituted the Olympian
games.

At one end were piled tons of garlic. Beyond
were pottery, glass, copper, tin and iron ware ; sad-
dles and donkey-harness; straw hats and caps dis-
played on the ground. Push carts and improvised
tables were heaped with nespoli, cherries, sides of
bacon, fishes in oil. Long lines of booths were de-
voted to high-colored sweets, toys, kerchiefs and
scarfs and many sorts of small wares.

In a dirty inn we drank a dark, muddy, sweet
fluid that had all the vices and none of the virtues
of Turkish coffee. The owner of the shop had
nailed up a rough shelf outside the door and hung
a balance. He brought out in his hands a roasted
sheep, smoking hot; and, after haggling with a
customer, hacked it with a cleaver. The buyer re-
ceived a quarter on a kerchief, knotted opposing
corners and so carried away his portion.

Two or three doors away a rival dealer bran-
dished the head of a ram impaled on a pointed stock,
its dead eyes glaring, its horns ready for battle.
The two barkers shouted in competition. * 'Roast
sheep! Roast sheep! Better than sweets! Roast
sheep! Better than sweets!"

On the other side of the narrow way there bally-
hooed three or four vendors of roasted "ciceri," the
chick-peas of Cicero's family name, and squash
seeds, peanuts, dried chestnuts and roasted beans.

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 247

One of them was crying: "Hot, all hot; red hot
the ciceri ! Here I have them all hot ! Red hot the
ciceri !"

To which another responded: "'Murricani!
'Murricani! Who wants to eat American nuts?
Peanuts ! Peanuts !"

The peanuts were small and poor ; they lay about
in sacks marked "Portland cement."

The brown, seamed face of the woman who
roasted the ciceri fascinated me. Her orange head-
kerchief was knotted at the back of her head, show-
ing earrings that touched her shoulders. Her black
dress was tucked up, leaving her petticoats pro-
tected by a huge blue apron. On a circle of lava
stones rested a deep iron pan over a fire of vine
cuttings. In the pan was sand, which she stirred
with a wooden shovel till it came to the right heat ;
then she turned in her peas, stirred briskly till they
began to pop, and then with bundles of rags lifted
the pan — it was patched, for I counted, with nine
pieces of iron nailed on — and turned the sand
through a sieve into another big pan, delivering the
hot peas to her husband, who acted as salesman.

"A-li! A-li! A-li!" drivers shouted to their
mules. Carts and carriages were still coming up the
hill, plumes waving, harness glittering. Champions
were giving exhibitions of whip-snapping.

Fishsellers arrived almost as exhausted as the
"nudi." Like these, they had run all the way from
Catania, bringing fish taken during the night. In

248 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the flat baskets on their heads eels were still
wriggling.

Some distance up a steep side street Santu had
unharnessed L'Allegru. With him we found
Michellinu, who had slipped away from us while
we were in church, and who could not be brought
to cheerfulness even by Agatina's promise of a share
of her "falsamagru" at luncheon. Wearily he came
with us to look at the carretti.

Every writer on Sicily talks of the painted carts
of Palermo; but he who has not seen the festa at
Trecastagne has missed one of the great cart sights
of the island. Over a large part of Eastern Sicily
every carter who affords himself a new cart or has
an old one repainted times the work to have it fresh
and shining for Sant' Alfio.

Among the carretti parked in Santu's neighbor-
hood were one or two decorated in the older style
which Pitre says was general down to i860, having
the panels of the drab or yellow box painted with
fruit or flowers. But the rest of these vehicles,
whose mission in life it is to carry charcoal, sulphur,
stones, sand, oil, bricks or any other merchandise,
were vivacious as a moving picture show. The two
panels of each side and the three panels of the back
were covered with figures, and each figure, in a style
sincere, vivid and mediaeval, got action.

Against a background of dragons' blood red the
paladins of Carlo Magno tilted in the lists, crusaders
fought Saracens, San Giorgio slew the dragon, or

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 249

Sant' Agata worked miracles. Columbus discovered
America and Ruggiero repeated all his real and
legendary Sicilian victories. One or two of the
Catania cart painters had departed from tradition,
and made to live again such recent happenings as
the assassination of King Umberto, King Vittorio
Emanuele watching an aviation display, the Messina
earthquake and battles in Tripoli.

"Look; the starry flag!" said Michellinu, point-
ing out a cart which showed the Stars and Stripes
wreathed with the Italian tricolor as framed to its
pictured panels.

The paint was shining new. Stepping closer, we
saw that the cart bore the date May 1, 1913. On
one side was blazoned a rendition of Washington
Crossing the Delaware, flanked by Lincoln Receiving
a Group of Freed Slaves. On the other side were
Washington's Farewell to His Troops and Wash-
ington's Farewell to Lafayette. On the tailpiece was
the Assumption of the Virgin with at one side Envy,
green and scowling, and on the other Fortune, in
yellow with streaming banner.

The owner of the cart came forward to enjoy
our interest in his horse's brilliant caparisons. He
was called Bernardo Pappalardo, and he said he
had worked four years in the woolen mills of Taun-
ton, Massachusetts. He had saved a little "pile,"
and had come home with it a year earlier to Catania.
Needing a cart, he had sent to Boston for picture
postcards to help in its decoration.

250 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Proudly he called attention to the carved Turks'
heads that finished the key bar under the box and
to the two mottoes set into the lacelike iron-work
below the portrait of Garibaldi:

"Se nemico sei, guardami con invidia; se amico
sei, con piacere," ran the first: "If thou art an
enemy, regard me with envy; if a friend, with
pleasure." The second said, "This cart is thus ele-
gant to give an answer to the ignorant."

We ate early the chicken that Agatina had
brought, and her "falsamagru," which was rolled
like a jelly cake with chopped meat, eggs and good
black olives inside. From a huckster's cart we got
wild artichokes and scalora, a variety of endive.

High mass was beginning. Its progress was
marked by the clangor of bells and the explosion of
mortars. At a certain point we knew by the roar
of cannon from the hill that the golden doors above
the altar had opened, and the three saints were dis-
closed to adoration.

When we tried to push our way back to the
church, it was twelve o'clock, almost time for the
saints' triumphal procession through the village.
The piazza was all but impassable. The vendors
of tin ware, the men with copper pots and braziers
and brass lamps, the men with pottery, the men with
strips of hide for shoes, the men with saddles and
donkey harness, were gathering up their goods from
the ground.

The tin especially interested me. Out of empty

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 251

cans the smiths had contrived graters, cups, lamps,
lanterns, sauce-pans, utensils of many sorts still
bearing the manufacturers' labels of canned sar-
dines, tomato conserve or biscuits.

The oil jars, the mixing-bowls, the plates and
the basins of glazed earthenware shone in brilliant
greens, yellows and blues. The water jars were of
uncolored red terra cotta. We watched an old
shepherd from the mountains squat, choose a
"quartara" and test it carefully by sound for any
imperfection in the baking.

In the morning a great stretch of ground had
been covered with spreading hats of dwarf palm;
now these were hung against the walls of houses.
An energetic woman stood over a quantity of cheap
German cloth caps trying one after another on the
head of a loutish boy who drooped in the sun as
his mother critically surveyed him.

The mountains of garlic had diminished. Every
other man and every mule wore a rope of garlic
as a necklace.

Small gambling games did a lively trade. On a
table under a big red umbrella little nickel horses,
legs and tails in air, raced round and round, ridden
by knights in red, green, yellow and black, whose
colors corresponded with those of other little horses
painted in the many narrow radiating segments that
divided the circle of the table.

At the next stand was a fishing game. Your hook
caught an envelope which held a ticket which gave

252 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the number of the trinket you won. The fisher-
man's invitation, punctured by his jangling bell, ran,
"Come in, fellows, let's go fishing ! To the miracu-
lous fishing, come on !"

Swarms of flies settled over the cherries and the
sweets. Every hawker had thrust into his goods a
split stick carrying a picture of the saints, and had
wound his balance with roses.

Little terra cotta whistles crudely colored to rep-
resent saints were among the toy-dealers' best sell-
ers. Michellinu chose one that stood for the risen
Christ; Agatina took the Madonna Addolorata; I
chose Sant' Alfio.

The people who, like ourselves, were struggling
for viewpoints near the church were mostly of city
types unlike the mountain gnomes one sees at Ran-
dazzo or Bronte, higher on the slope of the volcano.
Some mountaineers there were, small, dark people,
their eyes squinting at the sun; the men wearing
short pendent caps, the women heavy antique ear-
rings. But more numerous were handsome, white-
skinned girls of Catania with soft, rounded faces,
black hair and big dark eyes half-hidden under black
shawls.

There were many brides, marked by shining dove-
colored silk dresses and shawls. In the old days it
often happened that a Catania bridegroom bound
himself in his marriage contract to take his bride
to the festa of Sant' Alfio. Perhaps it happens
sometimes to-day.

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 253

Near the main doors of the church a brass band
worked so industriously that I did not hear when
Carmela spoke to me, nor did I see the hands that
she and her sister and her mother stretched to draw
us into their position of advantage. Carmela had
told me only two days earlier that she should not
dare to come to the festa because she had not yet
the money to buy a wax stomach ; yet here she was ;
to help her sister, she told us.

Carmela had vowed a stomach to Sant' Alfio
something more than two years earlier on recovery
from an illness; but when his festa came around
she had not saved money enough to present more
than a rotolo of wax, about a pound and three-
quarters. The next year, still unable to spend six-
teen lire for the stomach, she offered a candle weigh-
ing two rotoli. This year she had feared the saint
would look bored if she presented herself for the
third time stomachless ; but her sister's great candle
had to be brought, and the sister could not bring it
alone.

The wife's husband, who had just emigrated, had
written from New York that during a storm at sea
he had vowed a candle of five kilos if the ship should
come safely to land. "He said," continued Carmela,
"that his wife must fulfill his promise."

Carmela and her sister are dark, wholesome girls
with high cheekbones and the regular features of
Arabs. Their mother still has a red glow in her
olive cheeks, but most of her teeth are gone, and

254 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

her forehead is puckered from the effects of strong
sunlight. Carrying by turns the eleven-pound
candle, the three had walked in stockings the twenty
miles or more from Taormina, arriving at Trecas-
tagne the evening before.

They had been in the church since midnight, and
could tell us the gossip of the festa. The woman
whom we had seen sacrifice her hair had done so
because of a grace given to her a few minutes before
our arrival. She had brought in her arms from
Catania a seven-year-old daughter who, after a
long illness, had become lame. The mother im-
plored Sant' Alfio to liberate the child, but nothing
happened. At last the two sat down in the church,
the mother sobbing. But of a sudden, said Carmela,
"The little one jumped up, walked and shouted,
'Viva Sant' Ainu!' " The mother fainted for joy,
and when she recovered she caused her hair to be
cut in gratitude for the miracle.

Our friends said that most of the men who had
licked the pavement had done so because during the
eruption of Etna six months earlier Sant' Alfio had
caused the lava to spare their vineyards.

But, before the women had time to tell us more,
with a clamor of brass and tumult of bells the
gilded "vara" appeared on the threshold of the
church, and Sant' Alfio, San Filadelfo and San
Cirino, three seated wooden figures painted in green,
gold and red, were before us, receiving the salute of
40,000 frenzied people.

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 255

Hot air balloons went up. "Viva Sant' Alfio,"
written in huge letters across the facade of the
church, flashed out in sputtering fireworks. The
bells in the campanile crashed an ear-splitting
gloria. The air was thick with powder smoke. The
ground shook with the explosion of mortars and
cannon.

Meanwhile on the golden car sat the three
brothers side by side, each impassive on his chair
of state, a full moon halo shining at his back ; each
dressed in brilliant vestments and hung with jewels
and flower garlands.

The struggle to approach the vara was appalling.
Men carrying babies kicked, shoved and cursed
their way towards salvation for their infants. Sant'
Alfio is criticised, Carmela told us, because it is
mostly men who obtain the miracles; but this is
not his fault ; it is only because women cannot get
at him.

Across the middle of the flat car ran a gilded
fence, behind which, under the canopy of the saints,
stood the priest and sacristan we had seen in the
morning. Outside the bar on the front platform,
immobile, expressionless as the statues, stood two
carabinieri. Clinging wildly to the sides and front
were shrieking men, holding up watches, money,
children. Some were mutes, some possessed with
evil spirits; some merely distracted fathers.

Some of the gifts received by priests and sacris-
tan went into the box over which the policemen

2 56 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

stood guard; some were pinned to Sant' Alfio's
clothing, which presently was a-flutter with paper
money. I recognized numbers of American bills.
One man reached up a kicking kid which the priest
laid over his shoulder. Another offered a live hen,
gay with red ribbons.

Now and then the priest, reaching down, took a
child from its father, laid it on the platform of the
vara, and after a minute, picking it up again, held
it high in sight of the shouting mob, or gave it back
to the father without showing. A few favored
children, placed on the floor of the car before it
issued from the church, remained there throughout
the procession.

After a long wait the sacristan tinkled a bell and
the car started forward a few paces, running on
low wheels and pushed by every hand that could
reach its long side bars. Behind it blared the band ;
in front walked hundreds of people carrying great
candles. After a minute it stopped again, facing us.
There was a fresh outburst of gunfire.

This time we could see more distinctly the re-
splendent painted images, each bearing the palm of
martyrdom. Sant* Alfio sat between his brothers,
so bedizened that earrings, bracelets, watches and
golden chains combined to make for him a glitter-
ing barbaric garment. Men and women who could
put a finger to his chair or to that of either of his
brothers kissed the finger devoutly.

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 257

"How he is beautiful!" murmured Carmela's
mother. "He looks as if he were going to speak."

At this moment a three-year-old boy in a con-
spicuous green skirt was passed up to the priest,
mother as well as father stretching after him el-
oquent gesticulating arms. After a little while man
and woman struggled back in our direction sobbing.

"He didn't!" wailed the father; "He didn't do
it; the saint didn't do it! Poor son; poor little son
of mine ; Poor broken baby !"

They passed out of our sight. Later I saw the
green skirt on the vara a second, and then a third
time.

"Look, Vossia," said Carmela at my ear; "the
saint does look out of sorts; I ought not to have
come."

"Out of sorts? How can you tell?"

"I know," returned Carmela; "without the stom-
ach I ought not to be here."

Carmela's trepidation, or fatigue, was so genuine
that we withdrew with her and her people to the
balcony of a house that overlooked the route of the
procession. From this vantage point we watched
for another hour the offering of gifts and the
prayers for assistance. Next day we heard that in
money, jewelry, loads of wheat, wine, carts, and
horses Sant' Alfio received nearly $5,000. He is
very rich indeed.

After the procession had passed the side street
where we had left Santu, we returned to the car-

2 58 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

riage. Preparations were in progress for fireworks
and other spectacles in the evening; but the mass
of holidaymakers were already tying bunches of
garlic and pictures of the saints to the panaches of
the mules, and beating drums and tambourines as
they climbed into carts, or mounted their women
folks behind them on asses, ready for the occasion.
A blind tale-singer recited to the notes of a
squeaky violin:

13 When San Filadelfu was druggist,
And San Cirinu was the doctor,
With Sant' Alfiu the surgeon,
They made pass every pain.

With eleventh hour desperation the hucksters
thrust small wares into women's hands, shouting,
"What fine goods, women! It's a piggish shame to
leave them."

It was good to turn away from the noise and the
shouting for the quiet Mascaluccio road which
Agatina's father had recommended for our return.
We took Carmela into the carriage, since she re-
fused to rest for the night with her mother and
sister at Trecastagne.

"Sant' Alfiu always smiles at sight of the people
at his festa," she said mournfully; "but to-day —
he did look out of sorts."

13 E San Filadelfu era speziali,
E San Cirinu era lu dutturi,
E Sant' Alfiu chirugo magari
Facevunu passari ogni duluri.

THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 259

The Mascaluccio road is not beautiful, but its
grades are so stiff that few carts followed us. Car-
mela and Santu told tales of miracles as we jogged
homeward through old fields of lava, where the tree
like genestra of Etna blossomed fragrant and yel-
low, though we were too tired to listen. It was still
mid-afternoon, but even l'Allegru, the Lively, was
subdued. Michellinu had deserted us for the cart
of a friend.

Down through the region of vineyards and of
lemon gardens we came to the suburbs of Catania,
where thousands of people had come out to watch
the annual spectacle of the return, which is not in
any Northern sense of the word a descent of the
"drunken." For a Sicilian a little meat and a mir-
acle are an orgy. Through the long Via Stesicoro
Etnea we rattled as we had done the night before,
in a hubbub of bells, cracking whips and tam-
bourines.

Agatina's mother had prepared a great dinner
equal to that of the last day of Carnival ; but we did
not stay to eat it. Tinuzza and Turriddu, Agatina's
children, were expecting us in Taormina.

From the doorstep of the antiquities shop they
shouted as the old post wagon came willingly to a
stop: "A fairing! A fairing! You promised us a
fairing! The ciceri?"

We gave them saintly whistles and tambourines;
but the ciceri were saved for the morning.

When the children had whistled and drummed

26o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

themselves away, Agatina's nonna explained why
Sant' Alfio cannot grant a miracle to everyone who
asks it. "Not a leaf moves without the will of
God." And then one must comply with conditions.

Once a mother asked her three-year-old child
who was dumb, "What will you give Sant' Alfio if
he liberates you?" This is custom. One asks a
child, and it holds up perhaps the bread it is eating,
perhaps a toy ; the first thing it sees. The offering
must be just that. The three-year-old held up a
bean. To the mother a bean seemed too mean a
thing to be accepted by the saint, and she had it
copied in silver.

"The child was not liberated," concluded the
dignified old woman.

"Before next year I must buy that stomach," said
Carmela, shaking her head forebodingly.

I left Agatina telling her grandmother about that
live flame, Michellinu.

CHAPTER V
The Car of Mary at Randazzo

The heap of old houses blackened by the sun and beaten
by the winds, on the edge of cliffs under which runs the
Alcantara — who looks at the merlature of its walls and its
gates, the Gothic windows of Santa Maria and of San
Martino, cannot resist a sort of fascination, almost an hal-
lucination : It seems that the city's barons are on the alert. —
Italia Artistica.

At four in the morning the Bagnoli Croce is
awake. It is still dark, but there are lights in the
houses, and I hear voices. Going down to Giardini,
I meet mules coming up, laden with barrels of
water and wine. A muleteer warns me, "Carefully,
Signura; the road is bad." It is dawn before I reach
the marina ; twenty-five or thirty men are hauling a
net. The Alcantara is reduced to a thread of water.
Etna looks very near and very brown. At Giarre
men are loading into a freight car great bales of
snow from its upper slopes, protected by thick layers
of broom and oak leaves.

The garden behind the Circum-Etna station at
Giarre shows what can be done with irrigation. It
it a riot of roses, hibiscus, geraniums and oleanders.
The vineyards on the lower slopes of Etna are

261

262 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

heavy with purple clusters. Knotty, rheumatic-
looking vines, closely pruned, from which half the
leaves have fallen, carry grape bunches that must
weigh several pounds. At frequent intervals we
pass a straw hut, newly built or put in repair, the
sheepskins on its raised floor showing that the
watchman is not far distant. Every palm of ground
is cultivated. The "sorbi" are turning red. Pear
trees overladen are propped by long canes.

As we climb higher, the tall genestra of the Etna
slopes still shows a few fragrant yellow blossoms.
Near Castiglione the plantations of hazel nuts,
planted as regularly as the hills of a cornfield, show
themselves heavy with fruit.

Some stations before reaching Randazzo our
third-class car becomes overfull. Women carry big
pasteboard boxes that hold their gala clothes. The
guard jests with a group of boys. "To the festa?
Yes? Bravo! Then take care of this half of your
ticket. You'll need it coming home. Do you under-
stand ?" A little girl clutches in her sweaty hand
the claws of a frightened sparrow. She doesn't
know she is cruel. She tries to feed the bird.

From Giarre one goes up and up among terraces
and vineyards, flourishing in lava which has be-
come rich soil. As one passes them one sees the
lava not yet reduced to cultivable powder piled into
the walls of terraces or into heaps. What infinite
labor to reclaim even these patches of fruitful soil !

There are wonderful views of the sea where the

k l

A Straw Hut

THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 263

Alcantara comes down, a streak of yellow and
white, becoming green, and melting into the blue
of the sea. The clouds throw shadows that lie on
the mountains, deep blue at some hours, towards
sunset red. The transparency of the air is such that
to name a color is almost impossible. Deep, deep
blue predominates. As one rises higher one comes
to scattered pines and passes through miles of hazel
woods and birches. Before and after the hazel
groves one passes pine groves of enormous extent,
but the trees are all apparently young.

Beyond Solicchiata one passes lava ejected in
1879, a dead country; the lava assumes grotesque
forms of giants and dwarfs, animals and sea waves,
at the caprice of nature. Where a teaspoonful of
soil has accumulated springs a brilliant yellow
flower. Here and there the lava is piled into ter-
races to give place to a spot of cultivated ground.
The black lava stones are in color a murky, brown-
ish black, dead, without character or shape;
amorphous.

It is hard to explain the existence of the villages
that one sees lost among the mountains. What
brought anyone here to live? Castiglione is three
and one-half miles from the railway, yet it looks
prosperous and populous.

Randazzo itself, stern and black looking in its
lava dress, and with successive waves of lava
flows of the past scarring the country about it, is
spelled in terms of power. Even to-day the strategic

264 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

importance of the valley of the Alcantara is recog-
nized by the Italian government ; the valley dug out
by nature, between Etna and the Nettuniani moun-
tains, is a great way of travel between the Eastern
coast and the island centers; who holds Randazzo
is master, commanding the roads to Messina, Mi-
lazzo and Patti. So Peter of Aragon must have
reasoned, who came here after the Sicilian Vespers,
and his crowning in Palermo in 1252, to liberate
Messina beseiged by d'Angio. So perhaps thought
Federico, Frederick II of Aragon, who chose it as
his summer home.

L'Arezzo, il Riccioli and others may be right who
insist that Randazzo was inhabited by the Romans,
and by the Greeks before them ; they must be right,
considering its commanding site; but its historic
fame is slight before those spacious times when
Robert Guiscard came into the land, "in stature
taller than the tallest," as Anna Comnena describes
him ; "of a ruddy hue and fair haired ; he was broad-
shouldered and his eyes sparkled with fire ; the per-
fect proportion of all his limbs made him a model
of beauty from head to heel." Bloody battles were
fought in its neighborhood by the Byzantines and
the Normans against the Saracens, and the city was
taken now by one party, now by another ; after nine
centuries the plain where Georges Maniaces gave
battle to the Paynims still bears the title "della
Sconfitta"; of the Defeat; eight centuries ago, only,
Roger sent hither Greek slaves from the islands of

THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 265

the archipelago who established the silk trade — an
infant industry, quite, in these old lands!

From Randazzo the hard mountain slopes look
even more bleak than in winter ; all brown, lacking
the cool contrast of green and snow. But no one
has eyes to spare from nearer scenes. The tree-
shaded space at the entrance to the town is the
scene, as usual, of the fair that accompanies the
festa. There are mountains of green melons, bas-
kets of figs and of fichi dTndia, apricots, grapes,
pears. There are heaps of terra cotta wares, tin,
glass. Under the trees at each side of the way are
tables for the "little horses," targets for shooting
at the mark, rough benches for luncheon, the usual
merry-go-round and band stand.

A band from Riposto, followed by all the popula-
tion, parades the streets. They are brilliant with
devices to call attention, vocal with cries of vendors,
fortune-tellers, showmen and all the traveling
chasers of coin whose calendars are marked with
the dates of island festivals. And from the country
about the peasants have poured in. Under the flut-
tering flags, going towards the Matrice, I notice
just ahead an elderly man with an elf-lock, sticking
out from among the short grizzled hair on the back
of his head. The younger men wear sprigs of basil
in their buttonholes ; older people dress as in winter ;
the women in white wool mantles, the men wear-
ing stocking caps. The great vases hooped into
their iron rings on every balcony are gay with

266 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

brilliant blue morning-glories, petunias, fuschias,
carnations, roses, basil and kitchen greens. A can-
tastorie is singing and selling songs of "The Great
European Conflict." A word or two comes to the
ear in passing.

"Every poor mother afflicted, whose dear sons
have departed, prays from her heart the hand divine
to send them back in safety. Every mother weeps,
evening and morning; sad have become the poor,
the rich and every sort of people; peace is ours no
more, we are anxious."

Men of hard brown faces stop, listen, shake their
heads and pass on. Children gather about a lame,
bright-eyed old fellow who is selling whistles made
in the form of small, rude terra cotta images of
saints, painted in primary colors. Any member of
the heavenly choir, from St. Michael, the Arch-
angel, to the Madonna Addolorata, can be had for
a soldo. But to me the price is four soldi. "Why?
Because I am Sicilian, and sell according to the
customers. You, a lady, are able to pay four soldi ;
the boys are not. What are you doing, kid?" And
he hobbled off swearing at an urchin who was
fingering the basket load of saints.

"The risen Christ? All right; bravo!" The boy
goes off, shrilling on his penny whistle.

In the Matrice, or Mother Church, men and
women are kneeling before the chapel where lies a
life size image of the dead Madonna on a lace-
covered bier. Long hair flows about her shoulders.

THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 267

She wears a blue mantle and a pink silk robe tied
with a flowered sash. Marble feet in leather san-
dals peep from beneath her skirts; her head rests
on a silver halo. At her head and feet watch papier-
mache angels. Over her body is thrown a veil of
tulle. Tall candles droop in the heat ; as do the basil
and flowers that stand in great jars behind the
chapel rail.

At my side kneels a woman hidden, except fore-
head and eyebrows, under her white wool man-
tellina. She is praying in an undertone loud enough
to catch the ear: "Beautiful Mother, I entreat you
that my son be not called as a soldier." Not many
of us that day were in festival mood!

From the moment of my entrance into town I
have seen the framework of the tall car backed up
against the wall of the sacristy of the Matrice, and
the throng of people drawn to the town's chief pride,
superintending the operation of preparing it for
the procession. This car deserves a detailed de-
scription, for it is the vehicle of a Strang rite, sug-
gesting atavistic survivals from very old days.

The entire car has a height of fifteen or sixteen
yards, about a yard higher than in recent years. It
consists of a low, heavy base car from which rises
a mast of wood bound with iron, to which the va-
rious "fantasies" are fixed. This mast is made to
turn by four men who sit on supports arranged
under the floor of the car, which rolls on wheels.

The "fantasies" are arranged in eight tiers. From

268 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the floor of the car the tomb of Mary, a great
sarcophagus in anything but mourning colors,
gleams with red, yellow, green, pink and blue, and
carries a huge M on one side. Above this comes
what is meant to be a mass of fleecy clouds among
which peep the heads of cherubs. The clouds are
done in yellow picked out with black.

Above the clouds comes a great triple wheel in
red, gold, green and pink, set vertically. Then two
ranks more of clouds; then a second wheel not so
large as the first, but rayed like a sun with spokes of
many colors; then a third wheel in blue and gold.
Above these a crown in red and gold supports a
blue globe, which in its turn bears a tall gold cross
and banner.

The base of the car is adorned with a balustrade
of columns in gold and white paper. All the decora-
tions are flimsy paper and cardboard on a frame-
work of cane.

The twenty-five boys who sing the verses, the
"praises of the Madonna," bound to this structure,
are kept nearly fasting as a precaution against
nausea and dizziness. They get a little dry food,
biscuits and cheese, but no fluids, for a whole day
previous to the procession. They look as if they
were twelve or thirteen years old. They are re-
quired to confess and take communion before put-
ting on their gala clothes. In former days many
accidents are said to have taken place, but now the
car is better built, or possibly Maria is more vig-

THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 269

ilant. The boys mount to their places by ladders
set against the church wall, and are well fastened.

"It is a most ancient tradition," said a man who
seemed to have in charge the ornamentation of the
car. "Give her a turn or two, and let the lady see
how it works," he called to the men who were busy
tacking paper jars of flowers in place.

Obedient to the command, the men dropped their
tasks and turned the levers that made the tall mast
revolve in its socket, carrying around and around
the tomb, the clouds and the great wheels. The
fantasies are bedecked with much isinglass which
sparkles as it turns.

The car is backed up against the sacristy next the
apse of the Matrice between two scaffolds, with
ladders at the sides. The work of trimming it is
going on busily when I arrive; a crowd of people
are watching. The head mechanician takes me in-
side the enclosure to show me the works, assuring
me there is no danger, though when the wind blows
and the tall mast sways it may look perilous. The
boys, he says, are well tied. For them it is tin
giuoco. They enjoy it, and they get a lira for their
pains.

"Another turn or two;" and the mast groans
and creaks and revolves experimentally; revolves
vertically as it swings in its circle, and the mechan-
ician looks on proud of his job. There is nothing
like it, he says, anywhere else in the world.

The base cart or box is heavily framed of wood

270 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

and iron ; it runs on low, small wheels, and from the
floor descends a well, in which stands the iron-
bound mast. Under the floor on their cramped seats
crouch the four men who push the iron handles
that spring from the iron ring encircling the mast,
and make it turn.

As the hour for the procession approaches the
boys scramble up the ladders and one by one are
fastened into their places. On the great triple wheel
each lad is tied into an iron belt, while his feet are
bound to iron footholds. Most of them look like
caricatures of mediaeval knights, with helmets,
slashed doublets and hose; marionette figures
copied out of the "Reali di Francia," but without the
armor of fighting men. Their colors are as gay as
the isinglass paper — pink, green, blue, yellow, etc.
Their pink fleshings, doublets and cloaks have seen
service and do not fit; but the boys make up in
enthusiasm for all deficiencies.

The scene at the finish is a riot of enthusiasm, as
the boys scramble up the ladders. Tying them in
takes time. Clouds are gathering, but the people
say it cannot rain; the Madonna will not permit.
Everyone is explaining to his neighbor all about
the carro. One says the figures on the car in the
procession at Messina before the earthquake were
nothing but papier-mache. In Naples they make a
procession with a car in the form of a ship, but it
has not the significance of this, which sets forth
the Ascension of Maria into Heaven.

OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 271

At the very top is the boy Maria in a blue robe
by the side of the Padre Eterno, who wears a beard
and carries a cross. Two or three angels are in at-
tendance. On the wheels are boy angels in the at-
titude of flight. Below among the clouds are cherubs
and groups figuring scenes from the Bible. The
archangel Michael, with his sword, is dressed in
red. Guarding the tomb are Roman soldiers.

There is intense excitement as the last touch is
given. At a signal from the attendant priests the
boys begin to sing —

Bedda Signura, Matri Maria,
Evviva la Vara, ....

What follows of the lodi is lost in the wild cheers
that go up from the crowd. Little cannon explode.
The mast sways in the wind as it begins to revolve,
groaning and squeaking. The great triple wheel
turns slowly, then faster, as the car swings out
from its place between the scaffolds, and is pulled
and pushed by hundreds of hands towards the main
street, the Corso Umberto.

It is an amazing sight — the shining car, the gay
tomb of. the Madonna supported by the angels, by
tall vases of gelatine paper flowers; the three re-
volving wheels, the second of which swings higher
than the roofs of the low houses, the singing boys
whirling perilously in air, the isinglass and tinsel
glittering as the dazzling procession takes up its
march in the sunset light through the length of the

272 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

town. People lean from balconies and roofs de-
lirious with excitement.

The whole population of the town follows the
glittering car towards the dazzle of the sunset, the
gloria rung by the bells of each church, as it ap-
proaches, heralding its passage. At the west end
of the town, under the Norman campanile of San
Martino, the car halts and turns; its return must
be accomplished before the passing of the summer
twilight, for the electric light wires have been re-
moved to give room for its passage.

Once again at a stand in the open space behind
the apse of Santa Maria, there begins a frenzied
work of spoliation. "They grab off all the fan-
tasies," says the lame man at my side; and indeed
the boy angels are casting themselves upon every
bit of ornamentation within reach, pulling in pieces
the yellow clouds, wrenching away the cardboard
cherubs, stripping from the wheels the gaudy sun-
rays and casting them to the crowd, which fights
for the scraps to be preserved as charms for an en-
tire year, until there are other rags of another festa
to be fought for.

The angels, as is meet, keep for themselves the
best. At the top of the mast little boy blue Maria
is scuffling with the Eternal Father for pink paste-
board cherubs. The two attendant angels watch
their chance to rob both, but Maria gets the better
of all three and remains triumphant with his arms
full of chubby heads and spreading wings.

Tying the Boys in Place, and Detail of the Car

THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 273

When the mast has been rifled, it is pushed back
between the scaffolds against the wall of the
sagrestia, and the work of untying the boys begins
Each, as he is released from his iron belt, stands
a moment, cramped and stiff, then slowly clambers
down.

"Were you pleased with the festa?" asks Saitta,
proud, happy, sure of my answer, limping en-
thusiastically at my side as we hurry to the convent
of the Cappucini to get a closer look at the boys be-
fore they have time to strip off their angel robes.
Tired, sweaty, dirty, the band of angels lies on the
grass in what was once the garden of the cloisters.
"Tired? Yes, Signura; very tired."

And frightened ? Maria laughs at the idea. Maria
is never afraid of anything! "Disconcerted?" Well,
a little nauseated, just at first.

Maria is a chunky boy, as blond as a Swede, with
yellow hair and colorless white skin. In the scuffle
for the cherubs his blue mantle has been twitched to
one side, the golden halo is awry, his pale blue eyes
still gleam with berserker battle light as he hugs
the torn and ragged prizes.

The riches of Santa Maria, which pay for these
religious rites, were inherited from the Catanese
baroness Giovanella de Ouattro, who died in 1506,
leaving her entire property to this church. The boys
come together in the morning of every August 15th
at San Domenico, where in one of the rooms of the

274 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

antique convent they put on the robes kept for the
purpose.

The spectacle of this car, painted with a thousand
colors, from which hang those clusters of little
whirling creatures, is something which recalls not
so much the Middle Ages as the customs of more
distant places and barbaric times. It is a sort of
car of Moloch and of Vishnu which, if it does not
reek with human blood, yet costs a sacrifice. Those
angels, those miniature warriors, are kept fasting
from the previous day ; they undergo hunger, nau-
sea and fear gladly for the honor and the fame.

The vara of Messina, which Randazzo scorns,
dates from the sixteenth century or earlier; in
"Feste Patronali," Pitre says much earlier than
1535. When the Imperatore Carlo V entered Mes-
sina in triumph after the Tunis enterprise one of
the cars that came out to meet him was an Assump-
tion car, with Charles and Victory substituted for
Maria and the Eternal Father. In 1571 the August
festa with the car was repeated in November in
honor of Don John of Austria, victor at Lepanto.

Pitre illustrates the car as seen and sketched by
the French artist Huel before 1784. It shows cer-
tain differences from the car of recent times. The
great wheels have sun faces with rays as spokes;
the angels stand on clouds; Maria is held in the
hand of the Eternal Father. There are only two
banks of clouds.

Pitre also illustrates the car as it was in the first

THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 275

half of the nineteenth century, with clouds and sun
faces. He speaks of the moon and earth; and the
'earth is obvious. There are apostles, angels, arch-
angels, cherubim. The Padre Eterno is represented
by a man with a beard, cross in hand. The children
are attached at the ends of the principal rays of the
sun; they rise and fall in such a manner as always
to remain erect, like those on the wheel of fortune.
The angels are enjoying the triumph of the Virgin.

The basic ideas of the car may be confused:
Mary ascending into Heaven mixed up in naive
incongruity with old wheel festivals that typify the
sun and his fructifying magic. The earth and the
clouds, the sun and moon, the angels and "the souls
in their degree," all are in place. No one can fall,
since the city and the festival are under the protec-
tion of Mary. On that day, at least, no malignant
spirit can walk abroad, seeking to do mischiefs.

Well, it is over for the year ! Randazzo turns to
its daily problems of war and work.

From the window of my room in the primitive
hotel I look over the red tiled roofs of the city
towards Etna. To my right is a palace with a fine
double window; two dark arches of lava in a dark
facade; beyond is the refreshing green of the oaks
of the town; still beyond, the great mass of Etna,
broad of base as seen from here.

The streets are gay with catch-penny games.
Half a dozen men have set up marks for shooting.
The barker nearest me has a wooden box which he

276 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

hangs to an acacia tree ; inside are crudely painted
figures of Turks or Arabs, reminding me that some
of the streets of the town have been re-named for
the Tripoli war — Ain-Zara, etc. The weapon is a
rude cross-bow, shooting stones. Another man has
a "miraculous fish" game. You pay a soldo for an
envelope containing the number of your catch.

At another pitch are tables for playing the ponies
— gorgeous nickel-plated ponies gaily caparisoned,
their tails in air, their legs prancing. They race
under belled arches round and round, one horse car-
rying a tri-color banner. The hard-faced woman
who acts as starter has a little switch to keep too
importunate customers in order. She is not barking,
but presently her place is taken by a man who barks
in competition with the other ponies under the next
tree. The ponies are yellow, green, red and black.
The bannered horse carries a marker that ticks the
slate of the barrier fence. The circle of the table is
divided into segments of the four colors, each seg-
ment marked by radiating lines into little segments,
where painted horses, from i to 10 in number,
gallop briskly. You bet on your color and win as
many soldi as there are horses of your color in the
little segments where the banner stops. The barker
cries: "Green, color of hope; yellow, color of gold;
the Red Cavalier gains ! The Black Cavalier wins !"

It is hard to get anything to eat at the little hotel ;
at night they seemed to think I had had enough at
noon. At noon they had refused me chicken, though

THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 277

I could see fowl upon the tables. The guests had
brought their own. At last an old man reluctantly
pokes his head out of the kitchen and offers me
asparagus omelet, bread and nespoli.

While I eat, the daughter of the house tells me
that the women in nun-like dress I have noticed are
"monache di casa," home-staying nuns, of different
orders. For lTmmaculata the dress is celeste with
a white girdle and a long white wool shawl or scarf,
with a white band across the forehead. The Car-
melite dress is coffee-colored, with a black shawl.
These nuns call one another sister, and help one
another. They live at home but occupy themselves
with their devotion, much as if in a convent. Not
many women now become home-nuns, but always
some; "there is always religion." The old mon-
asteries and convents of Randazzo have now been
turned into schools; one is a factory; one the post
office.

I rose early to take a carriage for Maniaca, a
matter not to be arranged without difficulty. Finally
I start with Pietro, the waiter, on foot. He has
missed his morning coffee and is ill-natured. But
the way is beautiful, Etna in deep blue.

To the right as we climb out of the paese rises a
chain of mountains. The Mountain of the Wood of
Maria belongs to the church of Santa Maria, the
church of the car, which Pietro says is enormously
rich ; it has an income of 700 lire per day — which
must be a mistake — and thus is able to celebrate its

278 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

great festa every year. Beyond is the Monte Flas-
cio. We pass a desolate lava tract where it is hard
to understand why anybody should live; but there
is almost a village. It is "for the convenience,"
Pietro says. There are several new houses going
up; houses built of the lava itself, sometimes in
large part excavated in the black lava rock, their
roofs of red tile very little above the ground level.
A party of men on muleback overtake us, and with-
out ceremony, offer us a mount. We ask them about
the way to Maniaca; it is obviously impossible to
walk there and catch my afternoon train, so we
turn off toward Maletto on the hill to our left.

Our new way leads for three or four kilos along
a rough track up a lava flow; but before this is a
strip of clayey soil, wet in winter, split by cracks
in summer, poor land. The lava is old and rough,
almost as desert as it is twenty years after an erup-
tion. The path is worn into hollows by the feet of
mules, yet lonely as it is desolate. In an hour's
tramp we see two men. There are ring markings
on the lava as if it had stiffened in waves while
cooling. Where bubbles of lava broke are grottoes
sometimes big enough for sheep pens. Now and
then a few square meters of soil have softened
enough to permit of a patch of culture.

Not far from Maletto is a wee trickle of water
to our left where women are washing linen and
spreading it to bleach. The village itself is of per-
haps 4000 souls, dominated by the ruins of an old

THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 279

castle. Some of its streets are arched, making pas-
sages like those in Berne. The conspicuous church
is that of the patron, Sant' Antonino.

People gaze as we wander, looking for something
to eat. We go at last into a clean looking house
where the woman conducts us from the shop into
a back room, and sends out a boy to buy us pro-
visions. He comes back with a bit of meat, and
her husband cooks it for us over a portable stove
that stands outside on the balcony, overlooking
another narrow street. The woman spreads a sheet
over a small table and brings out bread, cheese,
sausage and scalora.

I bargain with a carrettiere to take us back to
Randazzo. Pietro has given out. Stefano, the
carter, ties two chairs in his cart and harnesses a
white mule, Concettina, very slow and sedate, who
is said to have a very beautiful harness, but it is
used on days of festa only.

Stefano is middle-aged, brown and wholesome
looking. He comes from Aderno, but has been six-
teen years at Maletto, and does not want to go to
America; he has his cart, his mule and his wife;
what more could a man want? He believes in the
miracles of Sant' Alfio ; has seen a dumb girl made
to speak after three pilgrimages made in three suc-
cessive years.

Pietro goes to sleep. The sun comes out, making
the day glorious. Stefano urges me to get out of
the chair and make myself more comfortable on

28o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the sheepskin rug on the floor of the cart, which
bumps and jars over stones and rough places.

At times Stefano sings ; at times we talk of Etna,
always in plain view, and its terrors. We talk of
bandits ; there are said to be few, though many men
in the lonely country carry rifles. Pietro thinks
they have learned that in order to eat it is necessary
to work. We talk of the Duke of Bronte, Admiral
Nelson's English heir and successor in that vast
estate. The Duke's men never leave him and are
mostly old. His service is well liked. The gardens
of the estate are very beautiful, and everything is
well administered. And, so talking, we jog along
back to the little albergo just in time to pay my bill
and catch my train.

If I had listened to Stefano I should have had to
stay another night in Randazzo; he had suggested
that I get down from the cart as we approached
the town, thinking I might not like to enter in so
rural a vehicle.

Considering the inn, that would have been to pay
dearly for sinful pride!

CHAPTER VI
"Red Pelts" at Castrogiovanni

At the end of May I have seen the men wrapped up in
a mantle which hides their faces and rises above their heads
like a cap; and the women, like the men, . . . swathe
themselves in a mantle which they clutch with one hand
under the chin. — Gaston Vuillier.

Castrogiovanni is a little over 3,000 feet up in
the air, and I have never seen it really warm. Past
the middle of May, the time of which Vuillier
writes, a season elsewhere of bare brown earth and
sun-baked herbage, I once more found the mountain
much of the time bathed in fog; why do they hold
the greatest animal fair in Sicily high in the clouds ?

Possibly because it is the center of the earth —
Enna of the ancients, Kasr Jani of the Arabs, half-
way house between East and West, the famous
fighting ground for men from both sides. It is a
city in the shape of a horse-shoe, a rocky nest, with
a steep valley in the middle. One sees old palaces
here and there, relics of former strength, huge for-
tress-like structures of squared stone blocks with
few windows, more like the mediaeval palaces of
Florence than the plaster ones of Catania. These

281

282 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

fortresses and the imposing churches contrast with
streets that are not streets, but narrow ways among
the rocks, worn by the men, the mules and the
carts that have passed there hundreds, thousands
of years — for no one knows when the first men
came.

The people are the most interesting I have seen
in Sicily; the men darker and leaner than those of
the lowlands, clad in dark blue hoods and coats;
the women with pure oval faces, olive complexions
and red cheeks, and with black hair; of the Greek
type, perhaps; in any case, beautiful. There is also
a type almost African in tint and feature, with skin
extremely dark and hair kinky as well as black,
black! They wear a black mantellina or a heavy
black shawl, and they crowd about the doorways to
look at us. Visitors are not many.

Yesterday I saw a wedding procession. Walk-
ing in front was the bride with her two sisters, all
in handsome dresses of dove-colored brocade, rich
and heavy, with black silk embroidered shawls hung
with long, rich fringe. Their heads were bare. Be-
hind the bride came her female relatives and
friends, all in peasant dress, with black headker-
chiefs and dark clothes. Behind these was the pro-
cession of the men, led by the bridegroom between
two friends, two or three dozen others following.
Paper confetti were thrown from the doors.

"There they are marrying a bride," said the boy
who guided us, in his imperfect Italian.

"RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 283

Stupidly I asked which was the bride, and the
sisters, hearing, pointed out the pretty girl in the
middle whose eyes were red from weeping. Peasants
never wear orange blossoms or put on white for
weddings. The gray brocade is a gala dress for a
lifetime, and the embroidered shawl the most
treasured of possessions.

There are here in Castrogiovanni the usual
Madonna legends; one is of an image found drift-
ing in the sea and towed to land by sailors. It was
put on an ox-cart, when the oxen without guidance
brought it to Castrogiovanni. At her festa in July
men dressed as reapers with shirt outside the
trousers carry this Madonna from the Mother
Church to the convent, where it remains for thirteen
to fifteen days — every day a festa — and people come
from far to pay their devotions.

A kindly old woman told us that here in Castro-
giovanni is the belief that some day the Madonna
must appear in person at the Franceschini church
— la Madonna della Visitazione. Her church in
Rome has been shaken by an earthquake, a sign
that she must leave it and come here; the Pope
must come also, with all the devout of earth, and
so Castrogiovanni will become once more Enna, the
center of civilization. In the church, of a usual bare
plaster type, a sacristan showed us the body of
Angelo Musico, a frate of Caltagirone who died
two centuries ago, whose relics have worked mir-
acles and who some day may become a saint. The

284 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

corpse, that of a toothless man of seventy-two
years, a wierd spectacle, is preserved in the habit
of the order, with cord and staff.

Beyond the garden of the convent one looks out
over a prospect second only to that of the Castello ;
over an endless succession of hills blue in the azure
shadows of the scirocco; blue, blue hills without
end. Never a road, but hills, hills, hills — and nes-
tling among them the lake of Pergusa, fishless for
its sins.

This Lago Pergusa is the spot from which Pluto
bore away Persephone. Legend says it was once
full of fish; good ones. Two rotoli of fish were
vowed every year to the Saviour by the men who
leased the fishing, but they were not paid, so the
lake was caused to yield only tiny fish not worth
taking. And so, shamed and accursed, it remains.

At sunset, from the old Castello, now a prison,
there is a view of the snows of Etna and of the
Madonni mountains, also snow-capped; a view of
the lower lying Salascibetta; views of interminable
wastes of wheat and fave, dark green and light
green, spaced by black cypress trees in groups of
two like carabinieri. Near the town a few fruit
trees, pears and cherries and quince, with now and
then an apple tree, are seen. But for the most part
wheat and fave alone speak of culture and give the
tone to the landscape. Sterile and deserted the land
looks, sand showing between the grain; there are

"RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 285

few roads and no signs of life on them; everybody
lives in the town and homes early these long days.
A strange town it is — 60,000 people with one
weekly journal, less a newspaper than a Socialist
circular; with one kiosque where out-of-town papers
are sold; with a decent public library, not large —
and a gun shop in every block. Small boys on the
steps of blacksmith shops finish off bullets moulded
in the old fashion, and trim away with nippers the
strips of lead in which they are imbedded.

I do not know whether to be more disturbed by
the Bowery manners of these Sicilians who have
been in America or the excessive politeness of older
people who have stayed at home. In the street yes-
terday a girl saluted me with, "Say, mister, how
do?" I asked if she could not use better English
and she explained, "I no speaka much. I back three
years." She had lived four years in Brooklyn, near
Coney Island, and would like to go again, but
Babbo "no want, because he got store now."
Father's store, set up with Brooklyn money, is a
hole in the wall where tobacco, wine and flour are
sold, with spaghetti and other indispensables.

On the other hand, there was the old woman who
was picking up manure in her hands for her grand-
children's garden. She looked eighty years old,
dodging about the heels of the donkeys. But when
I made her acquaintance her pity was for me, not
herself. She smiled and said, "Give me your bless-
ing!" the common salutation to a superior, some-

286 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

times improved to "Your Excellency, bless me!"
And she went on: "Are you quite alone, Your
Ladyship?" A bystander helped her lift the basket
of manure to her head and she walked with me
toward the church, a stately model of courtesy to-
ward a stranger.

Better excuse for keeping long awake who could
ask than the unceasing song of the nightingale?
This morning there was Etna, white with mist half
way to the top; then a band of blue, and then the
pearl-white snow and the deep shadows of the
summit, almost more beautiful, more dream-like,
than from Taormina. And beyond Etna the sea.

But for morning sounds, to ears that had heark-
ened over-long to Philomel, there came a sudden
clamor of bells, jingled by cows, oxen, asses, mules
and horses climbing up from below in procession.
I did not know there were in Sicily so many an-
imals. The plain of the mountain was black with
them. It is strange how black the "red beasts" can
be when massed together with fog blurring their
outlines at a distance, as at intervals it did in the
early morning.

From the church of Monte Salvo down and up
the hills and beyond on each side were these black
masses of cattle, tethered, hobbled, free. I never
reached the limits of them; I don't know how many
acres there were ; always more black masses in view.
Where do all the animals go at night? — some are
sheltered in the ground floors of houses; many

"RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 287

must stay at the Inn of the Beautiful Stars. The
forage, largely clover in flower, is brought on the
backs of asses.

For the men, there are two or three barracks of
poles covered with canvas, sheltering tables and
portable stoves. Most of the guests pull from their
pockets bread and a bit of cheese. There is not yet
such an abundance of trinkets for sale as at a festa;
no dried chick-peas or sweets; a man's affair it is,
and strictly business. Two or three men are selling
knives — which here may be necessaries. Each car-
ries a stout piece of cane into which the knives are
stuck, the handles pointing up. "American knives,"
they call; "genuine American knives."

Not that relaxation is wholly lacking. A young
fellow has a fortune-telling stand; in a column of
water little figures sink and rise; one comes to the
surface and brings your fortune in a slip of paper.
An old man brought me his, asking me to read it.
It said he had had many misfortunes, had suffered
much but should not despair. His distant friend
was well and would come home. He must not trust
all who would speak smooth words to him ; he had
false friends. But things were coming his way and
he would live to be seventy-four years old. The
brown, lean old fellow asked eagerly if all this was
true. Could he trust it? Voscenza would know.
He thanked me gratefully.

The bargaining is most animated. There is much
opening of animals' mouths to read the record of

288 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the teeth ; much lifting of saddles for possible galls
to show ; much heated argument. When a price dis-
pute becomes acute the seller will swear that he will
give away the animal — here a magnificent gesture !
— but sell below his price, that he will not, bear
witness the old gods!

There are splendid big mules with handsome
trappings and saddle-cloths; a few fine horses;
rough-coated young mules, fifty in a bunch. The
bands of color on the saddle-bags are strips of red
wool with applied embroidery of set designs, scrolls
and arabesques in green and yellow and white wool
stitched down with crewel. The broad tail-piece is
decorated similarly. The ornamentation covers one
end of the saddle-cloth and the lower ends of the
pack-saddle. At each side is a strip of red. Some-
times the pack-saddle has gay red wool corners;
sheepskins are often used as saddle-cloths. A horse
fully loaded with basto, saddle-cloths and saddle-
bags is "caricato."

Men with the air of masters, attended by guards
and foremen, look over the animals. Most of them
are dark, lean and sinewy, with high cheekbones,
foreheads lined, eyes keen and alert, squinting from
the sun. The noses are straight or aquiline, the
brows straight and heavy. Every man carries a
staff or goad stick, and the guards have double-
barreled guns on their shoulders or, if mounted,
carried in front on the saddle. In "making proof"
of an animal the herdsmen ride like Arabs or like

"RED PELTS'* AT CASTROGIOVANNI 289

cowboys. A group of them silhouetted on the sky-
line moving at a gallop is a wild picture.

Women appear and set up shop for the hungry.
One has loaded a lemon basket with her wares.
Another balances on her head a great water-jar. A
third has a heavy cooking pot full of onions. Bar-
gaining is as keen as the hunger. Curiously, the
onions come from the shore ; they say it is too cold
for them to thrive on these heights.

There is a stir in the crowd. A donkey in gay
harness clatters wildly towards us. Someone is
trying out a donkey before accepting him. The don-
key bumps into a mountain of onions and scatters
them; he stampedes a bunch of sheep that have
drawn together in a huddle, their patient noses to
the ground.

"Holy Patience !" says my photographer com-
panion; "One of St. Joseph's !" A "St. Joseph's
donkey" is a special breed, small, strong and bad-
tempered, mouse-colored and marked with two
black lines that form a cross, one stroke down the
spine, the other crossing the shoulders. Later in
the day I came across this beast and his purchaser.
The animal cost twenty dollars and was bought for
speedy reselling.

You need a special lingo to chaffer at a fair. It
is an art.

You glance at an animal, refraining from show-
ing deep interest.

29o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"Suit you?" asks the seller with equal uncon-
cern, but politely.

You answer with a little grimace, and pass on,
paying attention to other animals. After a time,
wandering back into the neighborhood, you care-
lessly ask the price.

"One hundred lire."

"Blood of Christ," is a mild oath at a fair. Up
go your hands in amazement. You hardly trouble
to add: "Now if you had said fifty, we might talk."
The other, knowing his ground, is indifferent to
your scorn.

You turn as if to go away; but at the moment
up saunters friend Pietro, a judge of animals; in
fact, an agent. He also glances at the beast and
makes some slighting remark. Follows the agent of
the owner, a poet in praise of the animal. Discourse
becomes animated. What looks like and sometimes
is a quarrel may result, as when a would-be buyer
tries to force earnest money, to bind the bargain,
on the seller against his will.

In one group we watched the chaffering over
two young cows and a restless young bull, plunging
and tossing his rope, I noted four old peasants, the
shawls over their shoulders in stripes of black and
white wool. These are mountain men, with brown,
lined faces, skin shoes and an air of coming from
wide spaces, a sharp contrast to the more ordinary
types from the shore. I gather that they are from
Limina. Their middleman is not tactful; he dis-

"RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 291

parages the judgment of the other agent in such
fashion that the seller stalks away, angry. The
herdsman himself strides after him, the trouble is
patched up, earnest money taken and the red bull
led away.

It is hot now. A couple of girls who have pigs
in charge have thrown themselves on the ground
for an early siesta, each pillowed on a pig. A boy
threads his way in and out, calling pictures of the
Madonna of the Chain for two cents. A blind
ballad singer sets up a broad sheet of canvas painted
with scenes of tortures inflicted by Arabs on Italians
in Tripoli. The colors are greens, blues, yellows
and reds; the sketching crude but spirited, espe-
cially the sweep from heaven of the rescuing spirit,
one of the "souls of the beheaded." The singer
points to each tableau as he sings of the episode it
pictures, then offers printed copies.

It is eleven o'clock now, and the meat ovens are
being drawn. Inside each oven one sees a brown,
sizzling stack of flesh and bones, with rich perfume
escaping. The meat is sold in half an hour. Beside
each oven stands a crier, a long form in his hand
and on the trident a sheep's head. He is hoarsely
calling: "Roast sheep! Roast sheep! Better than
sweets!" Men stand in line to buy. A quarter is
the usual purchase, for the sheep are small and a
quarter may not be many pounds. Each customer
takes his portion in a big handkerchief which he
knots and carries off, perhaps to one of the luncheon

292 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

booths that have sprung up in the shade of the
lemon trees by the dry stream bed. These are roofed
and sided, like the dry goods pavilions, with flower-
ing branches of oleander or screens of split and
plaited cane. They are furnished with rough tables
and benches, and the keepers sell little but the nec-
essaries of life — wine, peasant bread, raw onions,
garlic, Sicilian cheese ; but it is understood that the
patrons will for the most part bring roast sheep and
will buy only bread and wine to complete the
Homeric feast. How they eat meat, these Sicilians,
when they do eat it, as if storing up flesh food for
months when they do not see it !

Our party was not large — the photographer, his
cousin, Sambastiano, a friend from Limina, a man
who had come to attend a flock of goats a cousin
was selling, Mastro Peppino, two children and my-
self; but when Mastro Peppino failed to get more
than what seemed half a sheep, distress was ob-
vious. We carried our baskets out of the crowd
toward a spring at the stream, some distance from
the fair, but the picnic ground we had known in
winter was sadly changed. For lack of rain the
crops had failed, only yellow stalks sticking up out
of the ground.

We sought the shade and Sambastiano broke up
the hot meat. "Excuse my hands," he said; "if we
send to buy forks the meat will get cold." There
was bread from wheat grown on Sambastiano's
land, and ground by his mother in a hand-mill.

- -±

- X

< <
U -

"RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 293

There was no butter, but "ricotta," buttermilk curd
dried in the sun and baked, food for Sicilian gods.
There were fresh figs, bought at the fair; the early
summer figs, sweeter and bigger than later cullings.
There was wine pressed from Sambastiano's grapes,
not more than a year old, pure and delicious.

While we ate and drank, Don Vincenzo told
stories. Don Vincenzo is the Sindaco of Limina.
Short, dark, fresh-complexioned, plump, bright-
eyed and good-humored, he has been in America
and come home well-to-do. He is so pronounced a
radical that he has caused this inscription to be
picked out in pebbles on the front of his house:

"Here lives Vincenzo , Socialist." Yet he

directs the yearly festa of San Filippo, whose
miracles are the marvel of Sicily. In short, Don
Vincenzo is a man of the world and a good picnic
companion.

After we had eaten, the horses were put to, and
we set off down the break-neck slope with, as pres-
ently appeared, a broken rein, but a whip in ex-
cellent state, along with carts, mules, donkeys and
a stream of home-going people, personally conduct-
ing the goats, pigs and sheep they had bought.

The washing place below the town is not enclosed
from rain and cold, and we stopped to commiserate
with the washer- women there. But they would have
none of it. What would you? It is known that
one must work! Below is a watering place for
animals, busy beyond its wont with the needs of

2Q4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the newly purchased beasts. A water carrier there
told us he had worked in America, in mines near
"Pittisborgo" where he earned ten lire a day; in
Castrogiovanni he can get but three, and not always
that. But his wife and children are here. And
thereabouts came to us also one Lina Potenza, who
had been four years in America, and hopes to re-
turn when her father is able to travel. She has a
brother a barber in New York, a dressmaker sister
and another who is a featherworker. She has her-
self, though even now but fourteen, earned six dol-
lars a week working after school on feathers in
New York.

Also, I regret to say, there were boy beggars. I
had earlier written in my notes that no beggars ac-
costed us in Castrogiovanni. It was not, in fact,
then or now the begging season; few tourists ever
saw the fair of the red pelts.

But news of our strange taste in sights must have
got abroad ; for down into the plains, amid the low-
ing and whinnying and mooing of the boughten
beasts, and the twittering of the sparrows keeping
pace above them ; down past the miraculous crucifix,
a steep way with a never-ending procession of
women and donkeys carrying water ; down through
fields of asphodel, and small red Adonis ; down the
white ribbon of road we could see winding for miles
ahead of us, we were followed, quite in the fashion
of the "Milordi" travelers of tradition, by "Gimme
a penny ! Give me a little soldo !"

So were the proprieties tardily preserved.

PART III
ISLAND YESTERDAYS

CHAPTER I
Etna in Anger

Etna, that proud and lofty head of Sicily.— Seneca.

"Madre Mia" becomes an actual personality, terrible or
beautiful, and silently worshiped. The Sicilian peasants are
pagans at heart in their regard for Mount Etna.— William
Sharp: Three Travel Sketches.

Terrible or beautiful," the "actual personality"
of Etna stirred in his sleep, waking the countryside
to apprehension. There had been in September a
lava flow, that "unapproachable river of purple
fire" ; and still in January the mountain grumbled.
As N and I drove with Salvatore as coach-
man to Castiglione — perched on its rock, facing that
side of Etna from which the lava came down — the
flow of four months earlier still smoked blue and
wierd against the snow, and it was hard to believe
it was not still moving.

The people told us of two brothers who had
great wealth. One, when the lava approached his
vineyards and thickets of filberts, refused to let the
poor gather wood or help themselves to what could
be carried off, saying that if the lava came it would
come — that was fate — but meanwhile what was his

297

298 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

was his. He lost all he had, buried a thousand
years deep. The other vowed his year's harvest to
the Madonna del Carmine if his yield was spared.
The lava went around his farm; nothing was
touched — and now he is selling his crops to provide
money for the restoration of the church.

Some little girls took me up to the church of the
Madonna who worked this miracle, and told us a
tale that is repeated of half the saints of Sicily.
When she sees that her people are in danger and
wishes to come out in procession to save them, the
heavy marble statue makes itself so light that it can
be moved almost at finger-touch. When she knows
there is no danger she makes herself so heavy she
cannot be budged. She came out against the earth-
quake of Messina, and Castiglione did not suffer.
She refused to come out when Etna threatened, and
the lava did not touch the town.

We had been too hasty ; Etna bides his time ; but
two months later the eruptions suddenly assumed
terrible proportions. And from Palermo I came
hastening back to Catania for another ascent to the
devouring streams of fire.

The houses you pass on the way to Nicolosi are
black and ugly, built all of lava blocks, but they
look comfortable and I saw quantities of meat for
sale, and abundant bread. The region produces, on
the slopes of age-old eruptions, the best wine in Sic-
ily; broom plants, almost like young pine or larch,
border the way and there was the mocking green of

ETNA IN ANGER 299

young vegetation just on the edge of all that horror
above, of which, here, there was as yet little hint.

We reached Nicolosi at six o'clock, left the car-
riage and set out, on foot or by muleback, two
hours to the lava— so near to it that my face was
scorched. In the black night the river of fire was
hideous and fascinating. At the point I reached,
the lava was two kilometers wide and nearly forty
feet deep, spluttering stones that came tumbling
with a grumbling, thundering sound down the men-
acing front of the red lava stream that pushed them
on. Sometimes they split, showing the dull glow
of the heat within; and the vast mass moved im-
placably onward, so that you must gradually draw
back before its advance.

Another crater had opened that day and the lava
was moving faster. As this blasting flood reached
a tree or shrub it flamed like matches; poor little
peach trees, just in trembling spring flower, or glo-
rious great chestnuts with spreading branches alike
must yield, shrivel and fall. When the mass touched
a house the walls, as Papalia says, bent in a curious,
wavering fashion, then came tumbling down. Some-
times they sturdily stood against the pressure. It
was the same in the end. The lava covered all.

The processions of peasants, on foot and on
mules, going to the lava and returning from it,
with despair in their faces, the children crying, the
women praying — it was a terrible sight! I cried
myself as bitterly as any of them. I talked with

3oo BY-PATHS IN SICILY

one man who had lost 30,000 vines; with others
whose poor bits of land were covered and would
yield nothing for three hundred years. Priests were
going with candles to bless the lava and beg it to
turn aside from threatened villages.

I stood more than two hours unable to turn away.
Two parties came up, each with an image of the
Madonna. They arranged little altars and threw
themselves flat on the ground at the feet of the
Virgin.

If you can imagine a cataract of fire dropping
hundreds of feet, and rolling down with it huge
blocks of half -molten stone, you may know what
I saw. The night was so cold that we sat on half-
hot lava to keep from freezing. The sulphur gases
blew in our faces and when the wind cleared away
the vapor a little we were covered with snow.
Finally we went into the mountain climber's refuge,
a little hut occupied by twenty persons. One of our
party fainted and the rest were not much better off.
At six in the morning we began the descent and
did not reach Nicolosi until nearly noon. Thirty
hours of the inferno!

Still the mountain spouted lava ! Still it covered
little farms, depopulated villages; gulped down
trees in blossom. So once again we made our usual
trip to Nicolosi. Once more we called for mules.
We got one with an excellent side-saddle, and
another with something that had been a side-saddle
but was broken out of all resemblance to its family.

ETNA IN ANGER 301

I said I could ride it astride, so I arranged a blanket
over the mule's back and begged rope to make
stirrups. They brought me bits of cord so slight
that I did not dare put my weight on them, and
we started on the most toilsome trip I ever made.
The usual path over the flow of 1886, where it
swept down through these valleys between many
extinct cones, was so completely blocked by new
lava that we had to pick our way diagonally through
a lava stream where I do not suppose twenty peo-
ple had ever been before us. The lava, mostly of
1886, entirely surrounding a hill green with young
blades of grain at our left, was grotesque. In
places it was as if the waves of a storm at sea had
suddenly been petrified — as if stone surf were
plunging toward you; sea waves arrested just as
they were breaking, white and savage. In others
there were wierd shapes of men and animals; some-
times the flow was covered with white lichen.

The mules picked their way so slowly that we
were nearly three hours crossing the flow diag-
onally. At last we came upon beautiful fertile
slopes, green with wheat and planted with chestnut
trees. We were high enough to get a broad view
of the upper slopes of Etna, streaked and scarred
with black lava streams, some new, some old, run-
ning down through the valleys according to the tilt
of the land, now dividing to leave a green hill un-
touched, now uniting again, spreading like the
fingers of a grasping hand.

302 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

On our left was a moving stream of the new lava
thirty feet high, winding down like a serpent, bury-
ing vineyards and engulfing or pushing over great
nut trees that seemed to suffer death agonies at the
shriveling touch.

We climbed up beside it for another hour, watch-
ing the peasants cutting trees and loading mules
with the trunks to save at least the wood. These
processions of mules coming down with their mel-
ancholy loads were saddening to see. In some places
charcoal burners had put up huts to utilize the wood.

As we got still higher we passed the timber line
and reached a country covered with patches of
coarse, prickly grass, where sometimes the snow lay,
blackened with cinder and ashes. We were close
to three new cones, and all about were those of
previous convulsions. The muleteer told us the
name and age of each little mountain, but I could
not listen. I was tracing the black streams of death
of all ages and all widths that have run like rivers
down the dreadful mountain, leaving here and there
below us a green spot of a few acres where one
could see a house and picture the effort at tillage,
the isolation — and again spreading over miles of
country.

It was intensely cold, with a bitter wind, and when
we reached the shelter hut after five hours of rid-
ing, I could scarcely stand. We were told it would
be useless to try to go to the top, since the central
cone was sending out no lava, and so we started on

ETNA IN ANGER 303

foot to visit the highest craters we could reach.
The trip was not unlike the previous one, except
that we went much higher and were able to approach
two craters closely because they were not throwing
out pumice or stones. The ground was everywhere
covered with blocks of pumice, yellow with sulphur,
which the craters had vomited. But as we neared
the highest vents the lava flowed rapidly and
silently. When the sulphur fumes allowed, we
could go within a few feet of one crater and watch
the violet and orange lights, the play of colors in
the cavern. Our faces, and my dress, were burned
and we were nearly choked. It was an awesome
thing to see this river of fire pouring down hill, red,
like molten metal.

As the darkness came on we could trace its course,
winding among the hills for a distance that our
muleteer said was several miles. We were close to
two craters; one, higher than the other, was pour-
ing lava over its lip; the lower one had built itself
something like a well-head, and the lava had
tunneled below and was coming out from a long
cavern. The two streams gradually approached, ran
side by side, leaving a great ridge of cold lava be-
tween, and finally became one river, pouring to-
gether through a high gate they had built, and down
to desolate the country. The nearer brook was
about thirty feet wide, the other much the same.
The only sound was like the soft lapping of a stony
surf, as the lava poured itself along.

3o4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Back at the hut we were shaken by two little
earthquakes. The ground quaked everywhere; it
was like walking on jelly; but there were no severe
shocks. I wanted to stay overnight to get more
photographs, but the weather was too threatening
to urge anyone to sit in a chair all night in a tiny
room packed with twenty men, so we mounted our
mules to return. If you can imagine the sensation
of sharp descents over jagged rock in pitchy dark-
ness without stirrups, you will believe that I did
not greatly enjoy this return. We reached Nicolosi

about midnight, and N said she had been afraid

of the ghostly rocks. I had been afraid of nothing
except going over the mule's head, but very much
afraid of that. I tried at one time to have the man
lead the mule, but he had to let the animal's head
down so much that the poor beast kept stumbling
worse than before. The muleteer had one small
lantern, but the oil gave out just as we reached the
old lava flow. When they lifted me off the mule I

was so near fainting that N got me wine, while

the good woman in the hotel made hot coffee.
There was no room; the place was crowded with
newspaper men and tourists. We swallowed an in-
credible number of eggs and started by carriage for
Catania. At five o'clock in the morning, not having
gone to bed, we took train for Taormina, reaching
there at 7:30.

Late in April — for this was a drama of months;
a mockery of spring; a daily visible tragedy seen

% 73

*%3

Driven by the Lava Fruit Trees for Fuel

Ruined by Etna

ETNA IN ANGER 305

afar from the fairest scenes of earth, by people who
had little heart to enjoy the beauty about them —

late in April N and I went again to the lava.

Our fourth visit to Hell followed the now familiar
route to Nicolosi, which we reached about noon, eat-
ing luncheon in the carriage driving up from
Catania, so that we were ready to start at once for
the new craters ; but the lava had spread so terribly
that all the nearer ways were blocked, and we were
told that to reach the nearest crater — there were
seven in eruption — would take five hours on mule-
back and four for the return. We could get no
beds at Nicolosi, so we contented ourselves with
going to the main lava stream and climbing beside
it as far as time allowed. We had an appalling
view of the fire from three of the craters, getting
near them as the crow flies, though to reach them
we must have made a detour of more than ten miles.
Then we came down to the head of the lava, the
advancing wave of the main stream. It was moving
about fifty feet per hour and in places was more
than one hundred feet high, in others perhaps fifty.
The advance of the horrible thing brings the tears
into your eyes. Upon the previous visit, in the
evening, the rivers of fire were like dreams of the
inferno. But by daylight I was even more impressed.
The sky cloudless; everywhere the beautiful, smil-
ing spring ; peach trees in delicate pink blossoms, the
vines putting out their first juicy little leaves, the
almond trees all a tender green. The Sicilian spring

3o6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

is an enchantment. I never tire of the rich green
of the wheat, the blue of the flax, the red of the
poppy fields — and down into this smiling country-
was moving black desolation !

N and I sat on a low wall in front of a beau-
tiful chestnut tree. To our right were young
olives, a few apple trees with their blossoms just
opening, one or two pear and cherry trees and a
clump of fig trees. All around us was the richest
imaginable soil, fine as powder, black and immensely
fertile, planted with American vines, like most of
the vineyards in Sicily. The best table wine of the
island came from these slopes ; much like the Vesu-
vian brands about Naples.

The crowd of onlookers was as interesting as the
lava — perhaps six or eight tourists, the rest peasants
from the villages threatened with destruction. One
of the visitors was the pretty royal Princess of
Nomatterwhat, who laughed heartily at the spec-
tacle of the peasants hastily cutting trees to save the
firewood and carrying away even the smallest
branches of the olives. They were doing this with
frantic haste, because until the last minute they
could not bear to touch the precious nut trees which,
almost as much as the vines, mean their livelihood.

When this blonde Princess laughed, a poor old
woman spoke to me, as I was trying to take a photo-
graph, and asked, "Why do you outlanders come
here to mock our misery and take our pictures?"

I told her that I would throw my camera into

ETNA IN ANGER 307

the fire if that would do any good, and that I cer-
tainly was not laughing. Then I said that perhaps
my pictures might some time show other people how
Sicily was suffering, and asked if she would not like
to see some of them. I had received in the morn-
ing, just as I was starting, half a dozen that I had
taken with a borrowed camera on my other visit —
taken with a slight time exposure before it got really
dark. She looked at the first of these, recognized
her son in the foreground and was delighted. I
gave her the copy, and she began to talk faster than
I could follow the Sicilian.

It was a pitiful story of years of sweat and toil
to buy the ground over which the lava was advanc-
ing ; a little bit of ground, I fancy, for in this region
there are both very large and very small properties.
But she and her husband had given their lives to
but their tiny plot, and plant it with American vines
and bring these into bearing. They were splendid
vines, with big stalks; she had tears in her eyes as
she bent to show me the knobs or shoulders of the
old vines in full vigor. Little shoots of green were
starting from the big knobs, and the woman
touched them as if they had been her children. She
said all this work had been for the son whose pic-
ture I had taken. He had been in school in Bel-
passo and was to have gone to a higher school, but
now all was over. The vines were being buried;
her son — she did not care for herself; she was old
and must soon die ; but her boy

3o8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

"All yesterday," she said, "I lay flat at the feet of
the Madonna and begged her to spare the fruit of
blood and sweat; but the fire has covered half the
vines already, and before night it will cover the
rest. And there is nothing we can do."

It would have been mockery to say anything en-
couraging; I answered only: "It is true; there is
no hope but in the good God." I do not know why
I said such a thing in the face of cruel nature, ex-
cept that the faith of these people is so simple that
one must bow to it.

The effect it produced was astounding, even to
one who knows Sicily.

"Do you pray to the good God?" said the woman.
"Then you must be much better than we. We pray
to our Saints and to the Beautiful Mothers because
they are nearer and may perhaps hear us. We are
not good enough to pray to the far-off God."

N came up with two Englishmen from

Taormina and the woman saluted them respectfully
with "Bless you, Sirs!" but when it came my turn
she hesitated a minute and then threw her arms
around my neck and kissed me, begging me to pray
for her to the good God. I had no great faith in
prayer, with the fire rolling down at our very feet,
so I went to the carabinieri who were policing the
place, and inquired about the woman. She had told
me a true story, and I went back and gave her a
few lire. She said that if they could after a year
or so save a little money by working in other vine-

ETNA IN ANGER 309

yards the son would — come to America! That is
the dream of half Sicily.

I wish it were possible to picture the sight. The
blue shadows on the hills, the laughing flowers, the
throng of sad people watching, nearly all holding
rough alpenstocks which until yesterday were sup-
ports for the doomed vines — pulled up out of the
earth because no longer needed. The stream of lava
moving toward us, one formed of many streams,
was here probably three hundred meters wide.
Under the sun it was blackish, except when a great
piece fell away from the high front and rolled
down at our feet, red and emitting sparks. There
was a continuous fall of small stones and powdery
material, with the occasional descent of a great
mass, so that we saw our beautiful chestnut tree
buried almost to its top and the olives and fig trees
one after another uprooted and covered. This
wider river moved with greater noise and tumult
than the smaller rivulets of lava we had seen farther
up the mountain; many such must have united to
make its thousand feet of menacing width.

It is a piteous sight to see a little peach tree all in
flower shriveling before the fire. Back and back
we moved, for the lava scorched our faces. The
hundreds of people in mountain capes and hoods, the
women with yellow and white kerchiefs on their
heads, were very quiet. They had come to expect
the worst. For the most part, they said nothing.
Only now and then when seemingly half a moun-

3io BY-PATHS IN SICILY

tain fell with thunderous noise, someone would
cry out, "Oh, Madonna Mia, we are ruined !"

As night came on, it was as if we saw cataracts
of flame. The activity of the lava increased, or
seemed to do so, and one saw nothing but running
fire, fluid streams of fire, pouring from the lava
mountain wall that slowly pushed its way down-
ward. Now and then great caverns of fire opened
and tons and tons of molten lava came down with
a crash, breaking tree trunks and knocking down
walls. People were moving about with flaming
torches and lanterns. It needed only a group of
tourists to dance upon partly cooled lava, as some
are said to have done with strange bravura, to fin-
ish a study of the inferno in action.

And so once more, and for the last time, we came
away, reeling with fatigue, sick with horror, ready
with sympathy, able to do nothing in the face of the
appalling disaster.

The beauty of this cruel region is incredible.
Throughout the earlier days of the eruption Taor-
mina was in a fog of smoke and mist, the wind
much of the time a terrible scirocco. The terrace
was always strewn with ashes, and Etna lowered
through slate-colored clouds, a threatening monster,
a perpetual menace. Now and then tremendous
clouds of smoke were visible from the terrace,
whirlwinds of smoke, and at night gorgeous spec-
tacles of fire.

Then the sky cleared. After a belated snowfall

L &J

vjfl

MjL **J&

Hi.-**** 5

3 W$V g

■P"^^H

How the Lava Advances

A Useless Vigil

ETNA IN ANGER 3XI

there were glorious sunrises. Etna with new snow
whitening its sides was beautiful as a vision, with
rosy lights tinting the fainter smoke wreaths and
touching the white slopes into a dream of fairyland.
The snow lay as low as in January, covering the
cold black lava of many yesteryears.

Then rain washed the ashes from the vines and
everything jumped forward into summer life. The
vine leaves were of a most wonderful, delicate,
beautiful green. Wistaria was in luxuriant flower.
Spring roses everywhere blossomed. The hills were
orange-colored with marigolds. Below me the
lemon garden, and then the village with tiled roofs
yellow with lichen; then the young green of the
almond trees, punctuated by dark, straight firs ; then
the rocks of Theater Hill, yellow here and there
with spurge; at the top the dull red of the Theater,
and beyond, the blue sea — all this I saw

And so around once more in the mighty sweep of
the vision to the Mountain — and I knew the mean-
ing of every tiniest wisp of rising smoke, its cost
in tears and anguish !

CHAPTER II
Messina Six Months After

While I was waiting at the wooden shed that
served Messina for a Post Office, I saw a little dust-
covered Sicilian coming up, pulling the bridle of a
donkey loaded with fresh figs and lettuce. Two
trim Americans of the teacher type followed, each
armed with Baedeker and camera.

"Vossia ," began the Sicilian. But one of the

Americans interrupted:

"We want some figs, but what stuff is she
talking?"

The bent little woman was patiently repeating the
prices.

"Three for a soldo," I translated.

"That's three for a cent, isn't it? Could I get
them any cheaper?"

A minute later the purchase had been made and
the woman was moving away with a parting
blessing.

The American looked at me with round eyes.
"That's Sicilian for 'May God reward Your Lady-
ship,' " I explained.

"My Ladyship! That's good!" said the other.
"Do they all talk like that? But come on, Josie, we

312

MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 313

never shall have time to see the ruins and catch the
train."

To this had come Messina! Six months after the
earthquake of December 28, 1908, the Smiling City
had become the hunting ground of tourists in
search of a new sensation in a new Pompeii. The
search never failed, for half a year had changed
Messina chiefly in adding the grotesque and the
pitiful to the appalling.

Under the great sepulcher lay perhaps 30,000
dead. Camped close among the mountainous graves
were not far from 40,000 living. The peaceful
summer sky of Sicily, the moveless waters of the
Strait, the outlines of the Calabrian mountains,
were a dream of blue. Waking, you breathed the
poisonous dust of death hot with the scent of
orange blossoms.

The disaster left, aside from immediate relief,
two problems: the temporary and the permanent re-
building of Messina, Reggio, Palmi, Bagnara, Tre-
Mestieri, Ali and dozens of other towns along the
Sicilian and Calabrian coasts. The barracks, the
building of wooden sheds provided imperfectly for
the first difficulty. At all plans for permanent re-
construction the ghastly piles of ruins, here chaotic,
there imposing, grinned much as they grinned in
December.

Of the one thousand three hundred houses al-
lotted to Messina, three hundred not yet built are
to stand to the north of the old city toward the

3i4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Faro, the famous lighthouse many times destroyed.
The other one thousand lie a little to the south, not
far from the railway station. This village, ap-
proaching completion, is to Messina the "American
street"; to its American superintendents "The
White City."

To reach this bright spot that relieves the hor-
rors of the great sepulcher you pick your way from
the port, crowded with lumber-laden ships, to the
little wooden Post Office at the corner of the Via
Primo Settembre and the Viale San Martino. Here
you are at a rag-fair among the graves. All about
rise disemboweled houses, their crumbling walls,
gay with scarlet poppies, threatening to fall on
wreckage or on the gypsy huts hastily put up in the
first days of agony by the Italian and Russian
sailors.

The street is as busy as before the earthquake.
You are jostled by peddlers whose push-carts are
full of small wares saved from the ruins, and by
donkey-carts piled high with blood-stained mat-
tresses, bound not to the fire that should consume
them but to be sold, with or without disinfection,
throughout Sicily. Bumping these are the carts of
fruit and vegetable sellers and the venders of
lemonade and ices. Here is a great ox-cart laden
with lumber and there the carriage of a chance
tourist from Naples, gaping at the strange sights.
Everybody except the tourist wears a soiled, grimy
black, powdered by daily dust storms. Everybody

MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 315

from the bootblack to the tourist wears huge pro-
tective eye-glasses.

In the old days the Viale San Martino was a broad
boulevard shadowed by locust trees. Now it is a
narrow, treeless lane flanked by double, sometimes
triple lines of wooden structures, ranging from huts
of six boards and a mass of old clothes to trim little
restaurants and barber shops. Every one of these
shelters is a barrack, and to make a barrack you
need nothing more than a bit of sailcloth stretched
between two shanties. Here on the ground sleep per-
haps four or five persons, while by daylight the
space is given over to a tailoress with her sewing
machine. Nothing at once more grotesque and more
pitiful than the Viale San Martino has been seen
since civilization dawned. The barracks are roofed
as it may happen with tar paper, bamboo or old
boards. All the older ones and some of the newer
are without fire-places. Four to six bricks or a
couple of stones in front of each door support the
cooking pot, and among a people for ages used to
stone or cement houses it is a miracle that fires are
not as common as the daily earthquakes.

Behind the barracks are the mountains of ruins.
Slowly, in the Italian fashion, the wreckage is be-
ing removed as far back as the curb and a few
streets are being opened. On one side of the Viale
little iron tip-carts are run on temporary tracks ;
on the other side donkeys and boys are doing their
poor best to clear the city.

316 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Following the Viale south, one comes to the first
new brick house begun since the earthquake. I re-
member seeing two months ago a stick thrust into
the ruins with the sign "Occupied by the Owner."
The owner has now run his back wall perhaps
twenty feet high against a mass of rubbish, such as
no one who has not seen the wreckage of Messina
can imagine, a mountain of broken brick, plaster,
iron beams twisted as you would twist a straw,
bamboo, mattresses, iron beds and broken furniture.
At each side the tottering walls of tall houses prom-
ise to come down before many days to wipe out
this little stroke of energy.

A few steps more against the poisonous dust
that always sweeps the Viale and you reach a house
that stood the earthquake without injury. It is a
beautiful mansion of one story in reinforced con-
crete, standing in a rose garden. Its elderly owner
spends hours daily on a terrace overlooking the
city, and I sometimes wonder if he is glad of the
lesson in construction he has taught his fellow cit-
izens, or if, like so many others, he has lost friends
enough to say, "We who are so unfortunate as to
survive."

The clamor is like that of another Naples.
Around a little spigot bored into an old aqueduct
fifty people are literally fighting for water. The
braying of the donkeys and the screeching of women
offering lettuce and huge purple figs, fresh from
the country, that already — or is it fancy? — exude

MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 317

the acrid stench of Messina, deafen the ears. Mes-
sina is rising again — but through sufferings!

Constantly rising, one comes to the plain of
Mosella, a suburb of the city where the first lands
were expropriated for building on a large scale.
Sorry barracks are most of them, sheds divided into
rooms twelve feet by twelve feet without windows,
often without doors. Passing these rapidly, at the
height of the long slope is a bridge crossing a tor-
rent where the way is stopped by guards. Beyond
the bridge shines a white village under the Stars
and Stripes.

An American passes with a quiet "Buon giorno,"
and then is almost at home. Not quite ; the intense
blue of the sky and the overpowering scent of
lemon and orange blossoms do not chime with the
little Yankee houses all in white trimmed with
green. Yet — yes; he is at home!

The village has been built under the architectural
direction of John Elliott, artist, son-in-law of Julia
Ward Howe, with Lionel Belknap, represent-
ing Lloyd Griscom, American Ambassador to Rome,
as Superintendent in charge. It is away from the
ruins ; it stands on healthy, uninf ested ground ;
shaded by such trees as could be spared, orange,
figs, olives and acacias.

The village is laid out roughly as a square with
broad streets running East and West, and narrower
side streets grouping the houses into blocks of
twelve. Each house is sixteen by twenty feet and

3i8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

stands apart from its neighbors, though the space
is not so wide as it should be. Each is clapboarded
and roofed with zinc. It has a little attic with
ventilating louvre boards and is divided below into
two rooms with a small annex for kitchen. Outside
it has two coats of white paint and a little notice in
white and green enamel, "U. S. to Italy, 1908."
The kitchen would hardly be recognized by an
American even as a kitchenette. Its only furniture
is a brick fireplace built solid to a convenient height.
A brick wall is carried up at the back and side but
the wise Sicilian smoke finds its way out through
a chimneypot in the ceiling. The front room is
often divided further by hangings into bedroom and
living room while the back room serves for dining-
room and, often, a second chamber.

When completed, this village will be given to the
City of Messina. At present several hundred houses
are occupied by families in special need, as when
an invalid must be removed or a child is expected.
In addition to the barracks a church in the form of
a Greek cross and a hotel of seventy-five rooms,
placed East of the village toward the station, are
well under way.

By the wish of the United States Government, all
this work is being done by Sicilian laborers ; largely
by survivors of the earthquake. Six hundred men
are employed now and they show no signs of the
apathy of which Messina has been accused in the

Queen Elena's Village

•Kitchenette," American Village

MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 319

Italian Parliament. "Faithful and intelligent" are
the words of Mr. Elliott.

As for the future, in the minds of commissions,
sub-commissions and sub-sub-commissions, every-
thing is done, because plans for everything have
been endlessly discussed. There is a key-plan for
the laying out of a new city with commercial and
residential quarters, the essential quarters consisting
of streets ranging from ten meters for those of less
importance to twenty for the main avenues; the
houses to range from seven to twelve meters in
height, each standing in its own garden. This plan,
aside from the bureaucratic difficulties expected in
Italy, encounters two obstacles: It cannot be carried
out without the removal of the mountains of ruins
that encumber the city and without the founding
of special credit for builders' loans.

Messina has complained with reason about nearly
everything that has been done and has not been
done for her during the past six months, and espe-
cially of the lack of schools. There is no school
yet in the American village, but it might surprise
those Americans who think of Sicily as a country
of ignorance to see schools in barracks which are
little more than dens, barracks that seem to cancel
twenty centuries of civilization. The only schools
that do not bring tears to the eyes are those of the
village built by the Italian sailors and soldiers and
called by the name of Queen Elena.

Inferior in some respects to those of the Amer-

32o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

ican village, these houses pay far more attention to
picturesqueness of appearance. They stand well
North of old Messina among olive and lemon
groves and near the sea. The life of the village
centers around the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele III,
a public square adorned with a little wooden church
and with a fair supply of gymnastic apparatus. The
barracks are of one and two rooms each and are
built for the most part roof touching roof, almost
in solid blocks but always with the prolongation of
the roof above a porch in a manner almost Swiss,
which gives a sense of cheerful homelikeness not
to be found elsewhere in Messina. As in the Amer-
ican village, every house is staring white, and the
village has a workshop with sixty sewing machines
and a public kitchen.

It devotes two barracks to elementary schools,
one for boys and one for girls. The girls' school is
furnished with rough benches, a blackboard and
pictures of the King and Queen. On the blackboard
was written, "A dirty and ignorant girl is scorned
by all." Intent on spelling out the syllables stood
a child of the dark, almost wild, Moorish beauty
so often seen in Sicily, in this case domesticated by
the uniform of the school, a long blue and white
pinafore. Five minutes later girls and boys together
were scampering up and down the street, skipping
rope, turning handsprings and watering the roses
that grew in their gardens.

This is the bright side of Messina. Another

MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 321

school I visited flourished under different condi-
tions. To reach it, an alpenstock and hob-nailed
shoes would not be out of place, for you take one
of those mountain paths among the wreckage which
are still the ordinary means of communication in
Messina, climbing now to the second story of a
house whose front wall has fallen, leaving almost
intact the furnishings of the upper floors, now de-
scending through debris of every sort to the broken
pavement. I came to a little square bounded on two
sides by ruins, on the other two by barracks, life
touching death everywhere here. Among the scat-
tered stones, the wrecked chairs, the torn mattresses
that had fallen from the ruins a dozen or twenty
girls were dancing in a circle and singing something
as pretty and nonsensical as our old nursery rhyme :

14 Swing around, around me !
A loaf and a round loaf, see!
A handful of blue pansies
I would give to her who fancies —
And who fancies is Sandrina.
Down; kneel down, the littlest!

As, obedient to orders, the smallest girl dropped
on her knees the Sister of Charity in charge said
to me in her sweet Southern Italian: "The little
ones do not know." Her glance went from the ruins
about us to a table inside the nearest barrack where

14 Gia, gia tondo ! Un pan' ed un' pan* rondo ! U mezzo
di viole Lo vi dare a chi lo vuole; E lo vuole la Sandrina.
S'inginocchi la piu piccina!

322 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

stood a jar of flowers that carry to all Italians a
meaning, the flowers of patience.

But it is not patience that is keeping a once proud
and turbulent city so quiet during its months of
agony. It is grief, it is physical and mental fatigue,
the result of unhygienic living, and it is a powerful
wrath that becomes despair. A few weeks ago there
was started a weekly journal called "L'Iniziativa,"
edited by Giacomo Marocco, a survivor of the
earthquake, whose object is to call the attention of
Italy to the red tape that strangles the new life of
Messina, and to sing the song of the moment:
"Beautiful is Life, and holy is the Future!"
From the first number I take a paragraph which,
exaggerated or not, expresses the feeling of Mes-
sina against the government of Giolitti:

Under the ruins lay our dear ones, wounded and calling
for help, and you sent us 12,000 soldiers, not with hooks
and ladders to save us, but with rifles to hinder us from
approaching our houses, under which we still could hear
the groans of our families. You justified your work by
saying that it was necessary to guard private property. Set-
ting aside the fact that we would have given everything we
possessed to save the lives of our relatives, only bureaucracy
could have conceived the idea that among the wreckage and
in the dark any sort of watch was possible.

I remember San Francisco. As soon as the fires which
completed the destruction of the business part of the city
were extinguished, the people, who lived for the most part
outside the business section, came flocking into town, laugh-
ing, calling to each other "I've nothing to wear. I don't
know where to get my next meal. But we're all alive. We're
here; we're here!"

MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 323

Hardly fair. San Francisco kept her people.
Messina lost her best. The tall palaces of her men
of substance and of energy, the heart and core of
a commercial city, perished; the low houses of the
slums escaped. Catania is sheltering six thousand
refugees, the largest number of any city in Italy,
and a census of these unfortunates shows that only
seventy-five are above the class of the day laborer.

To be a refugee from Messina has become a trade.
It suffices to put on black and, to the anger of all
Sicily, to revive the custom of hand kissing, which
since the days of the Bourbons Messina has fought,
side by side with Palermo, to extirpate as a relic
of feudalism. The custom will dwindle again as the
disaster recedes into history, but at present it is
pathetic to be unable to pass through a village with-
out being mobbed by a crowd all struggling to kiss
your hand or arm, and all crying: "I kiss your hand,
Your Excellency" or "I kiss your hand, dear pretty
young lady." Foolish private charity has done this
mischief, has done so much mischief that intelligent
Sicilians are beginning to measure its evils against
its good. The multiplication of private committees
and the lack of statistics of families have made it
possible for a diligent refugee to receive help from
half a dozen committees while persons not accus-
tomed to asking relief have had nothing.

This offense to their dignity the best of Messina
is feeling, and against the clamor of beggars rises
a protest. One day I heard an old sailor tell a story

324 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

with much bitterness. Awhile ago a couple of little
beggars, ragged and barefoot, were begging
through the streets of Rome and playing a hand
organ. A lady threw them a pair of shoes so worn
that they hesitated to take them, but a woman of
the people called to the lads: "I'll take them; they'll
serve a year for Tro Sicilia.' "

"What's not good enough for beggars will do for
us Sicilians," he said wrathfully. "And whose fault
is it if not our own that for every little misfortune
— tidal waves, earthquakes and the like — we beg
the rags of all nations? We who have survived the
earthquake and those who have the courage to re-
turn— we have no need to beg, even of the Govern-
ment! We are sufficient to ourselves."

There will be a new Messina, not because the
domination of the Strait is necessary to Italy, not
because in 1908 Messina was eighth in importance
among the ports of Italy; but because her people
love the city. When in January it was proposed to
bombard the ruins the people rushed to the port
crying: "Kill us too! Let us die with Messina!"

A few days ago as I stood by a ruined church,
since brought to the ground with dynamite, there
came to me a man and a tottering old woman,
strangers to each other, who told me the story of
the church, of its great convent suppressed years
ago by the Government, of its wealth and of its
beauty. Finally the woman said: "Ah, what beauty

MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 325

is gone forever! If the lady could have seen that
she could have seen our city!"

I told her that I had seen Messina before the
disaster and the woman, smiling as if I had given
her a fortune, turned away saying: "God reward
you! She knew our city!"

Love of the city will rebuild it. It is easy to see
the difficulties. But also easy to see that the noble
impulse of brotherhood that gathered the survivors
on shipboard and trainboard and scattered them
from Naples to Genoa and from Taormina to
Palermo went too far. Well for the wounded that
there were hospitals ; well for orphans and widows
and the old that they could find asylum. But for
able-bodied men with families stranded in cities
where they could not speak the language — Sicilian
dialects are foreign to Northern Italy — the natural
relief was the soup kitchen. When funds were ex-
hausted and the kitchens closed, the cry "Send the
Messinians back to Messina" found the barracks
full to overflowing, and work on the ruins taken
largely by Northerners. Houses are going up now
with speed, though they cannot keep pace with the
flood of population ; people are sleeping on the lower
floors of ruined houses likely to fall in upon them.
Some weeks ago I met a poor creature in black
carrying a baby and leading a donkey laden with a
few poor articles of furniture. She had lost her
entire family except a brother in New York. In
the first hours under the ruins she and her husband

326 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

had talked together. Later, she had said to him:
"Let us not lose strength speaking. When I press
your hand, press mine, and we shall know both
live.,, After a time her husband ceased to return
her pressure, and later still when rescue came
husband and three children were dead. She was
taken to a hospital in Palermo and when she had
recovered strength went to her brother in New
York. But in New York she was unhappy because
of her mother and sisters still under the ruins. So
the brother gave her what little he could spare and
she returned — to find that April was nearly spent,
and that after the beginning of May digging in the
ruins would for sanitary reasons be forbidden.

CHAPTER III
In the Sulphur Mines

Castrogiovanni, the most picturesque town in
Sicily, is as good a point as any to set out for the
place to which descent is swift, as dimly fore-
shadowed for us by the sulphur mines. N and

I went together, local belief being that it was un-
wise to set out alone into that wild and desolate
country.

The transformation in the appearance of man
and his habitations was dramatic enough; at the
very edge of the town we passed grottoes dug in
the rock of the cliff-side and still inhabited by cave-
dwellers, as we were to see them at Caltanisetta and
elsewhere. But once out in the country, the way
was bare, through limitless plains of wheat and
beans for miles.

The few people whom we met were kindly and
interested. An old shepherd was watching sheep on
a slight rise to the left of our road. I jumped from
the carriage to photograph him. He was manifestly
pleased by the process and asked if I could not wait
while he went to his hut to get a ricotta for me,
anxious above all things to prove his hospitality.

327

328 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

That little break in the journey past, nothing in-
terrupted the monotony.

It was more than a two hours' drive to Bonanno.
The desolation of the sulphur country is unspeak-
able— a blasted region of yellow earth, with little
holes pecked into the ground, about which the smell
of sulphur ever hangs. The Bonanno mine is small
and still uses the old-time kilns, so that from a dis-
tance one sees the conical furnaces walled up on the
sides, but open at the top except in the actual proc-
ess of burning, when the sulphur with which they
are filled is covered with earth and refuse. Fusing
can take place only in settled weather; at that alti-
tude, only in summer. Rain has free entrance.

As I expected, permission to enter was refused.
The superintendent was most kind and showed us
the smelting and other exterior operations, but
seemed inflexible in his refusal to go further. He
said that the galleries are so deep in water that they
would be quite impassable for me. I assured him
that I understood the conditions and took my own
risk, and chatted a little in Sicilian, that being the
easiest way to get on terms with sub-authority.
Pointing to the line of wretched little "carusi" com-
ing out, each with an abominable back-load of stone,
I said I was sure I could go once where those boys
went twenty-four times a day. Finally he agreed,
and I took of! my hat, wrapped my head in a scarf,
took off my coat to replace it with a workman's
canvas jacket, pinned my skirt high, and was ready.

Miners at Villaross\

IN THE SULPHUR MINES 329

The superintendent detailed two master workmen
to accompany me, each with a little terra cotta lamp
fastened at his forehead. The law prescribes that
safety lamps must be used but in practice they are
not, except immediately after an explosion of am-
nion ial gas. The tunnel down which we started was
in no place much more than two feet wide and we
had often to flatten ourselves against the slimy stone
wall to permit the passage of boys laden with sul-
phur ore — wretched, wrinkled, yellow little bodies
bent double under their yellow load.

The law forbids inside labor before the age of
thirteen, but outside the boys begin at eight and
ten, and who is to know if they go into the mine?
There is nothing to prevent except the fear of
accidents to boys too young to be licensed. Each
boy must make twenty-four trips daily with sul-
phur rock on his shoulders. The pick-men work
twelve hours. Caution money of thirteen hundred
lire must be paid to the parents of boys ; in theory
this is simply a loan, to be repaid when the work is
given up. The boys are bent and wrinkled like old
men.

Very seldom could I stand erect, the roof seem-
ing not much more than three or four feet high.
The descent was almost perpendicular, down broken
stone steps deep in mud, water constantly dripping
from the top and sides. The two men constantly
warned me not to slip, strengthening my conviction
that I should.

33o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

After a little we began to pass side galleries
where because of the intense heat men were work-
ing naked; they dodged out of sight as we ap-
proached, but it was easy to guess that they cannot
stand erect at their task but must work in a crouch-
ing position. We went down and down, the heat
every minute more suffocating; my clothing was
plastered with mud. Finally we came to the mouth
of a gallery where someone was screaming with
pain. We found that a mass of rock had fallen
and apparently broken the arm of a miner. It is
unlawful to use dynamite in the mine because the
roofs are precariously supported by slender props,
but it hastens production and the owners wink at
the process. This was the result of a blast, I used
my scarf to make a tourniquet and bandage — there
was nothing else to do. They did not dare carry
him out until quitting time for fear of raising a
riot. So there we left him, in that inferno, to wait
another half hour; I felt as if I were leaving my
own brother, but there was nothing I could do
except sacrifice my muddy scarf. I had left money
and food with N

So I climbed back up the broken, slimy steps,
the water dripping on my head, through darkness to
daylight, emerging, I was told, white-faced and
nerve-shaken as well as muddy.

One of the more primitive mines was hardly a
fair sample, perhaps. So, three days later, off we
started for one of the six or seven largest mines in

IN THE SULPHUR MINES 331

Sicily, the Lucia, three hours from Girgenti. I had
a letter of introduction from a man who had been
paymaster of a neighboring property but had been
thrown out of work by the flooding of his mine.
We were warned at Girgenti that the road to Lucia
was unsafe and that we must have a good driver
with a gun; we let the hotel choose him, and he
proved a sensible fellow. After such precautions,
less experienced island travelers might have been
made nervous when, an hour out of town, a group
of countrymen taking their ten o'clock luncheon by
the ditch at the roadside ran toward us waving their
arms and calling on us to stop. The driver pulled
up and the rough-looking fellows offered him and
us their flask of wine and some hot beans. I put
my hand into the bean dish and held out my glass
for the wine, winning from the driver compliments
upon my Sicilian manners. For it is custom, and
very old custom, thus to offer food and wine ; to re-
fuse is an insult that, in the case of a man, is some-
times the cause of feud and bloodshed and is always
grave discourtesy. But with these chance acquaint-
ances of the roadside we parted most amicably, ex-
changing courteous good wishes.

The Lucia mine belongs to the Principessa Pi-
gnatella di Napoli ; the director, Signor Savona, en-
tertained us at luncheon. To his stock of food we
added our own, and duly complimented the cook
upon his adaptability and skill.

Signor Savona was unwilling that we should enter

332 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the mine, but while we sat at table, arrived most
fortunately the young son of the lessee with a

friend. They both fell in love with N , as

everyone does, and insisted that if we wished to see
the mine, the mine we must see. So the reluctant
superintendent had us shown to a room where we
put on waterproofs and later were conducted to the
shaft where the elevators were bringing up cars of
sulphur ore — for in this mine there is considerable
machinery, and a force of one thousand men where
there are but eighty or a hundred at Bonanno.

We stopped on the cage, or lift, a dirty iron plat-
form hanging from four steel ropes, which met so
close above our heads that it was necessary to
crouch on our knees to avoid them. These elevators
are commonly used only to hoist the sulphur; the
men go up and down on foot. We went to the sec-
ond level, about two hundred meters below ground,
with the superintendent and three workmen. I found
a gallery seven or eight feet wide, with a narrow
track for dump-cars and room to walk beside them ;
the height ample, the way comparatively dry. Here

N sensibly stopped, while the men and I

walked on in the darkness almost endlessly — I for-
get how many miles of passages there are — the
way narrowing little by little as branch galleries
leave it at either side; and finally, after following
through water a tortuous side branch, we came to
the end of the track and were in a part of the mine
much like that at Bonanno, with narrower galleries

IN THE SULPHUR MINES 333

and steep, broken stairs, where men were slaving
naked, and from which yellow little boys carried big
weights of yellow-veined rock on their shoulders to
the track. Here also there were the channels of
drilling for dynamite; for the superintendent said
that, law or no law, they could not mine sulphur
without it.

I felt as if I had lived a lifetime underground. It
was impossible to imagine the light and the air.
Here was a world of human beings, dwarfed and
stunted, snatching up their jackets at my approach,
or hiding behind jutting rocks; yet there was no
sense of impropriety; the men seemed a race of
gnomes. The heat was so intense that the natty
superintendent had stripped to his shirt. We came
to a pause, and a man brought water to bathe our
faces and wrists.

"If I cannot endure this two hours," I asked the
superintendent, "how do men and boys endure it
all their lives?"

"Poor devils," he replied, "I don't know. The
mine is big, but not rich in sulphur, so the earnings
are low. They work in shifts, but for the most part
from 5 a. m. to 3 or 4 p. m., and they never have a
soldo. When they are paid on Saturday they are
so" — the Italian word means so driven by fatigue
and desperation — "that they are mad drunk over
Sunday, and knife for a word. They come back
Monday moody and melancholy and work all week

;:- BY-PATHS m SICILY

as patiently as mules, but as sullenly as bears until
ano:'::r Saturday."

Not without reason are the mine bosses averse
: risita rs. The men are g i c n : 0 little j e s I S I k c
cutting the ropes of the eld ators. A year ago they
killed an engineer. He had done nothing. He was
not responsible for conditions in the mine; his
duties lay outside, in the power boose, but the
miners were desperate and craved excitement Later
I learned that a considerable guard had bee:: pot on
in our honor.

When we had regained breath wc dumbed I
level — two levels are almost exhausted and they are
now digging down to a third — and in a few mo-
ments rejoined X and the young men. They

gave us their arms as punctiliously as if at a ball,
and I reflected upon the caricature of life afforded
*: . two women picking their way with the polite
help of cavaliers through the water, while gaunt,
wrinkled men were sweating out their lives in every
side gallery and peering at us from Ihe darkness
with their little lamps flickering at their foreheads.
Some of the men dress:.: hastily and ran out to
offer us bits of sulphur for money, and I affected
not to understand their blasphemy when Ihey were
ordered back

and by we came again tc our elevators and
waited until a man had been sent up to make sure
that all was ready for our ascent and tc stand by

IN THE SULPHUR MINES 335

the gear. When we emerged I was for a time
blinded by the sudden daylight

The men were coming up early from their work,
for it was Saturday and pay-day, and I thought
I would see what they really were like. I asked a
number if I might take their photographs and they
were as pleased as children. They crowded about
me so eagerly that it was difficult to use the camera,
but I could not have found people more kindly,
more anxious to see my camera and more good-
natured. The superintendent and the young men
at first tried to take me away, but presently saw that
all would go well, and I used every film.

"You Americans arc queer people," said the
superintendent; "you are not afraid of these miners,
and yet if you went to their village, and put your-
self in their power — well, I wouldn't answer for
the consequences."

I am a coward, but I am not at all afraid of
Sicilians. I immediately asked the coachman to take
us home by way of the miners' village, and the party
divided, some going with the young men's carriage
direct to Girgenti, while I took the longer route,
with a miner on the box-seat with Jehu, and a
"caruso" hanging on behind. Of course I did not
meet with the smallest incivility. On the contrary,
an old woman whom I picked up on the way told
me quaint stories to add to my gatherings. Naturally
I was well scolded at the hotel, but the coachman
defended me, reminding them of the Barone G

336 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

and the Barone A . These two men own much

land about Girgenti. One never stirs out of his
house without six or eight mounted men to protect
him. The other goes on foot alone everywhere and
is safe because everybody feels that he is a friend.
And yet — it is a sad thing to stand on a mountain
and not be able to see beyond the land of one man !

Next day we went again into the country to
Siculiana, four hours from Girgenti, along roads
not supposed to be too safe, but they seemed as
peaceful as Long Island. We attended a festa where
one man in every six or eight carried a gun, but
unless rabbits are plenty it was hard to see why he
needed it. We bought roasted chick-peas and pea-
nuts and were as happy as children. I did not see a
beggar and the courtesy was in striking contrast
with the rudeness often encountered in Naples or
Rome.

We went also to Caltanisetta, where we visited a
mud volcano and another group of mines. I did
not go in again but watched the smelting. A good
furnace smelts sulphur in thirty hours. At Lucia
the furnaces are twenty- four in number, with four
compartments each. The fire is started with a little
coal, and spreads from furnace to furnace, for all
are connected. The old-fashioned furnaces consist
of circular walls of stone-like lime kilns within
which the sulphur is piled, and covered with refuse
sulphur rock or slag. In these the fire smoulders
for three or four days.

"Carusi" Child Labor

The Little Sulphur Miners

IN THE SULPHUR MINES 337

It was not imagination that made me see the
sulphur workers as occupational dwarfs. In a grave
report of the Minister of War, printed in Rome in
1909 and retailing observations of the military
classes born in 1887 as called up for service, it is
stated that the largest percentage of boys above five
feet nine inches came from Udine and Lucca. The
greatest percentage below the height of five feet
one inch were from Cagliari, Sardinia, and from
the sulphur districts of Sicily. In Caltanisetta one
youth of every six is undersized.

Yet it is an interesting place. The old hotel is
buried in a huddle of streets, the new one fine and
brave. Many of the mines about this town are
closed because of obstinate fires and a bad explosion
in one of them four months ago that injured sixty
men. The hands doing outside jobs, such as shovel-
ing loose sulphur rock into cars, paint dark pictures
of their life; but there is one ray of hope. "As fast
as we can," said one of them, "we escape to Amer-
ica." The "carusi" have bright faces and go to their
work laughing, though they may come from it cry-
ing. And they play about the great scales in which
the sulphur is weighed as if it was a giant swing.

The piazza of the town is too pleasant a place to
be obliged to "escape," with the Sicilian swallows
twittering about, the band playing — in Sicily a bank
may maintain a brass band as good business — and the
miners, goat-herds, peasants and town gentry taking
their evening ease together.

338 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Ought I to feel aggrieved that in this town a mass
of mud thrown through a restaurant window struck
my face? Assuredly not; since I was solemnly told
that it was meant for quite another person; since
by it I made the acquaintance of a noted Anglo-
Sicilian authoress; since the Mayor most humbly
apologized in person, and since the suburbs contain
some of the finest cave houses it has been my happy
fortune to behold, yet not inhabit!

CHAPTER IV
Hearth, Distaff and Loom

Gna Tidda was preparing this morning to set up
her loom for a new job, to weave a wider cloth. She
was adding to her "lizzu" — the English "healds"
is as foreign a word — by slipping on old threads
that had been used before, keeping a record of the
additions by taking a grain of Indian corn from her
apron for each twenty-five threads and putting it
in her lap.

Gna Tidda is grown very gray and old and
patient and sad. She lives alone in her room at the
left of the street. Her children are married and
gone. Her husband died four years ago, and she
has a horrible photograph of him dead in bed. Be-
hind the room is the tiniest kitchenette possible. She
eats a pennyworth of bread in the morning and
another at noon; at night, if she has anything to
cook, she cooks it, but her ovens did not look as if
they had been used for a month, and there were no
olive-prunings for fuel. I never pass the house
without hearing the clack of the loom, and seeing
her bent figure in shabby black sitting in the loom
seat, her stockinged feet on the rough treadles. Her
shoulders are bent almost to a hunch.

339

34o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Gna Tidda has to keep her loom in repair, which
may not be easy, as it belonged to her cousin's
mother and is fifty years old. She must pay the
woman who comes to fill the spools, and can only
charge so many pennies a yard for weaving. Tak-
ing one day with another, she may clear seven to
ten cents. She is working now on an order from a
woman who has a little girl eight years old and is
already preparing the stuff for the child's dowry.
Little by little the mother saves the money for
cotton and linen. Perhaps she has spun the thread
herself. She has ordered three pairs of spreads for
a big bed, and this homespun, half cotton, half
hemp, is preferred to machine-woven stuff because
it is more durable. It is not fine enough for pillow
cases or underwear.

Gna Tidda is always tired ; has no longer the will
to work; the cotton keeps breaking and her chest
hurts. She suffers, suffers, but compels herself to
go on. But little attractive as loom and life are,
both must be protected. She unfastens her dress
to show me that she carries on her neck figures of
various saints, including the Madonna della Rocca
and the Madonna di la Grazia. On the old loom
hang red rags, a little bag of "sacred things," a
bunch of olive sprigs, several small palm crosses
and a handful of wheat from the piatti — plates —
of Holy Week. These plates are of all sizes, but
each contains sprouted wheat rooted in wet cotton-
wool, and reminds us of I know not how ancient

HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 341

customs of honoring the old gods in the season of
nature's resurrection. At the head of her bed Gna
Tidda has more wheat from the plates and her
rosary.

Her loom must differ little from those used in
our country in Colonial days. Blankets and carpet-
bags are made much as our rag carpets are still —
woven by hand in odd corners here and there. The
tension is kept right by a rope wound around the
beam and weighted with a stone.

At the head of the stair-way street is another old
woman who uses the hand-loom for fringes, braids
and the like. The garters of the contadini who still
wear knee-breeches are woven on the little hand-
loom. But this old woman is weaving fine cotton
and the work goes slowly. She is very old, and can-
not work all day; a little in the cool of the morn-
ing and the evening. The hand-loom is as old as she
is. When she was a wee thing it was new. Now
that she has a bad chest the loom is sick, too, and
trembles. Never does she or any right-minded
weaver begin a task without making the sign of
the cross.

In the dusty, dark, low cellars of Limina I came
upon younger weavers. One of these had a brown
face with straight wrinkles across the forehead
from perpetual peering at warp and woof, and eyes
that looked tired. She was making cloth for her
own dowry at odd times, and weaving for hire as
well. And she weaves all that the family wears,

342 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

bed and body. The black and white "scampittu"
worn so gracefully as a mantle is woven on the
same loom in summer, after sheep shearing.

The colored ribbons that I see in mountain vil-
lages, on the hand looms, red, blue and yellow, must
mean complicated arrangements of the threads, for
mechanism so crude. Silkworm women weave
coarse stuff while tending their charges. Sicilian
silk is yellow, suitable for soft satins. In reeling it
the filaments should come off evenly in one long
smooth thread. The method is to float the cocoons
in basins in boiling water, brush them until filaments
which will unwind to the center of the cocoon are
found, then wind them into hanks upon the reels.
Much of the inland silk must go into the silk-and-
cotton mixture of Palermo factories.

Spinners of spells are all these women of reel
and loom and spindle; but the wisest are of course
the old. If one needs a very special spinning, where
could one better go than to seek La Scimone as,
bent double with asthma, she gathers minestra at
the foot of the garden.

La Scimone feels well enough by daylight, but
at night cannot lie down and rest, and she is afraid.
Medicines do her no good. She can eat nothing but
eggs and a little milk. She has prayed to God, to
the Madonna and to the good people, and yet she
is not well.

The air is breathless and warm; the mountain is
covered with blue veils one above another, through

HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 343

which the mountain villages show dimly. There
is just a fringe of surf at Giardini; the water near
the shore is greenish-white; further out a whitish
blue and bluish purple. But there is little air in the
old woman's room.

La Scimone's devotional table changes with the
seasons and Saints' days. Recently it was made up
of pictures of S. Pancrazio, Sant' Alfio, the
Madonna del Carmine and the Madonna della Catena.
She has a prayer in seven sections; so long that
when she tries to tell it to the priest, he says in sec-
tion 1, "Enough!" Also she has salt and oil for
evil eye, and never fails to say "Bless you !" under
her breath when she has met a person and has
thought of her, "How fat!" or any other unpleasant
thing. Now why should one who is so exemplary
have asthma?

La Scimone's husband was a sailor. For thirty
years she "did the tongue" in church to ensure his
safe return, but he died five years ago. She makes
brooms for sale, and her door charms against
witchcraft are complete and exhaustive. But she
cannot make the round of the great church festas
because of the asthma and the cost of travel.

I asked La Scimone about the conjuration with a
thread, and she said it must be a thread of wool,
and at once proposed to make me a sufficient protec-
tion. Going to a corner of the room where there
was a sheepskin, she pulled out some flocks of wool
and shredded them in her fingers, making them soft

344 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

and pliable. She looked admiringly at the stuff and
said she would card it and make me a "lacciu" — a
lasso or snare.

When at night I went back a minute, the beauti-
ful soft wool was on the distaff and in my presence
she spun, winding the thread about it. She did not
finish because the church bells began ringing the
benediction; she must go to church, where they
would say "many beautiful things of God"; after
that

The snare later proved to be a braid of three
strands of wool. She could not tell me how or why
it is useful against the evil eye, but there can be no
doubt of the fact, for when she was a child her
parents told her the evil eye had no power when
it was worn. She said I must make a bag and wear
it inside my dress.

La Scimone does not forget the church in her
veneration for the old ways. In a Worcestershire
sauce bottle she has holy water from the three fonts
of the Mother Church; she is waiting a chance to
send it down to the wife of the man who tends the
dazio, whose mother is dead, so the house must be
sprinkled anew.

La Scimone has never combed her hair on Fri-
day, and she says there are many women in the
country hereabouts who have never done so. For
there is a curse

Cursed be that woman's hair

For which on Friday comb shall care!

I/]

HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 345

Some who respect this ancient wisdom wear a
kerchief, so that no one knows the difference.
There are young girls, even, who do not comb on
Fridays. Some stay away from the lace schools a
day for that reason.

Even in America there are people who do not
like to begin a journey on Friday!

As I came down the path with La Scimone's
licciu fending off all evil a day or two later, Cumari
Ciccia was heating her oven— for in Sicily as else-
where the oven and the distaff are not far sep-
arated; bread and the needle; baking, weaving,
spinning— these are the trades of the home-matrons.
Cumari Ciccia's stubby, calloused feet were bare,
her grizzly hair in disorder ; her dress was open at
the throat, and the sweat was trickling down her
round, seamed, brown face.

"Walking in this heat, Signurinedda!!" she ex-
claimed, brandishing a handful of the vine-cuttings
she was drawing from the writhing heap outside
her door. "Sit down a minute."

As I entered she opened the wooden shutter of
the little square window about the oven to let out
the heat, and went on breaking up the vines. Gna
Ciccia's hearth, like that of every contadina for-
tunate enough to have one, is of masonwork, its
mouth opening between the two ovens that serve for
everyday cookery, the one a fire-hole for bits of
wood, the other for charcoal when steadier heat is
needed. Under the shelf is a recess handy for odds

346 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

and ends or for chickens at night; at one side is a
dish-rack. There is no chimney.

When the flames had quieted a bit Gna Ciccia
thrust in a poker with a hook on one side and a rake
on the other and drew out the nearer red embers,
catching them on the iron plate that serves as oven
door. Dropping these on the floor she dipped a
broom in an earthen dish of water and wet them
down, "for the brazier, when Uncle January sends
us cold weather." Home-made charcoal. Then she
broke and bunched more cuttings and fed her fires.

"How often do you bake?" I asked.

"Every twelve days; and the bread, does it get
dry? Hard as a stone to kill a dog; too hard to
eat without grinding teeth." She opened her mouth
to show me a few straggling yellow fangs. "But at
night if there is no cooked food one boils water
with a little garlic and dips in the bread. That is
good."

She wiped her face with her grimy apron. The
hen sitting in a basket nest of rags under the bed
gaped in the glow.

"How long does it take to heat the oven?" I
asked, pushing my chair as far away as possible.

"Half an hour in August but in winter, when the
walls are damp, perhaps an hour."

A Colonial housewife used to piling wood into
her brick oven would have rebelled if expected to
bake with no fuel but grape prunings, but in Gna
Ciccia's land these are good fuel; the woman who

HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 347

bakes with thorn twigs or brambles is the one to
pity.

Again and again Gna Ciccia brought in waving
lengths of the red-brown cuttings, doubled them
and poked them into the flaming cavern. "The oven
is ready," she said at last, drawing out and wetting
down another heap of glowing coals and bending
to sweep the inside walls with her black, charred
broom.

The loaves were still "abed," literally in the
family bed. Many times I have watched Gna Ciccia
knead her dough, spread a dark bread blanket on
the bed, set her round loaves in rows and cover them
with another blanket. Once, when her husband had
been driven home from work by rain, I saw him
roused from a nap to give place to the batch.

All the older women have charms to insure a
good baking, one to be said when mixing the dough,
another when the bread goes into the oven.

"Tell me again," I begged Gna Ciccia, "what
does one say over the bread?"

There was soot on her white bristling eyebrows
and lashes as she turned good-naturedly. "What
does one say?" she repeated, arms akimbo, leaning
on the broom, "One says:

15 "Rise, dough, grow,

As grew little Jesus in his swaddling clothes."

15 "Crisci, crisci, pastuni,

Comu crisciu Gesuzzu 'u fasciuni."

348 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

Then she took from its place against the wall a
long-handled wooden shovel, which she carried to
the bedside, lifting with it a great round loaf. "I'm
forgetting the salt," she said, and shifting the
shovel to her left hand, she took a pinch of brownish
salt from a dish on the rack and threw it into the
oven. Then she signed a cross before the oven door
and recited the second charm:

16 "Saint Rosa and Saint Zita,

Good of crust and good of crumb !"

She slid the shovel into the oven, dislodging the
loaf far inside. Another and another she carried,
until all twelve were in place; then she ranged a
few hot coals at the front and set the iron door in
place.

"It's hot!" she sighed, dropping on a stool and
beginning to retell the gossip of the neighborhood.
After fifteen minutes or so she took down the door,
examined and moved every loaf and closed the
oven again with a satisfied 'They must bake a while
longer. If you wait until they're done we can eat
this noon some hot bread dipped in oil."

Gna Ciccia's bread charms may not be the best.
Very common is "Santa Rosalia, white and red,
like you," referring to the reddish-brown bread
crust and the white within; or "Santa Margherita,
make it pretty as a zita," a bride. But you must use

16 "Santa Rosa e Santa Zita

Beddu di crusta e beddu di muddica !"

HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 349

some charm, even if you bake bread every day for
the neighbors.

Seeking the mill that ground Gna Ciccia's flour,
one runs the gauntlet of street industries. Most
familiar are the old men and women past more
active work who make fish-nets, trailing their long
lines by the blank walls, and the blacksmiths and
tinsmiths who set up forges in the street. The bel-
lows blows up a little fire kindled in a hole in the
pavement. So one forges nails, or even considerable
pieces of iron-work, or dismembers the square
kerosene tins of Zu Vanni Rockefeller and makes
of them a surprising variety of useful objects.

In an old factory down by the water, a long and
dusty shed, we come upon the making of citrate.
Three girls bending over a trough cut with one
quick motion the pulp out of half a lemon. The
peels fall on the floor and are taken by a boy who
presses them for juice to make essences. The pulp
is ground in a big hand-mill and then piled under a
press which is turned by levers. The juice runs in
channels under the floor to another room whence
it is pumped into tanks and boiled with powdered
lime-rock ; the fluid is run off into vats and the rock
is squeezed dry. The soft gray residue is spread
on shelves in a drying room where a stove fire
burns three or four days, when the finished citrate
is packed for exportation. Nearby, halved oranges
and lemons are put into casks with salt water to be
shipped to Germany for marmalade.

350 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

A little farther, at the macaroni factory, the
search for the mill grows "warm." There is a mill
of a sort that grinds the special hard wheat used for
"pasta"; then it goes into revolving sieves where
the bran is taken out. It is then fine flour. In one
corner of the room is a huge stone, a little hollowed
by use, in which the dough is kneaded, making
rather a hard, yellowish batch. A suitable piece is
cut off and put into a cylinder, in the bottom of
which is the mold, a metal disk punched with holes
to graduate the size of the spaghetti or vermicelli
as it is forced through. This mold would turn out
only solid pasta. Above it a clumsy hand press is
adjusted so that a woman, pressing hard against a
wooden beam, toils from one side of the room to
the other, bending forward, a patient animal, as
in a treadmill, and the pasta issues at the bottom
in strings. The man adjusts them deftly along a
rod, cuts off the skein at the top and hangs the rod
outside the house to dry in the dust. It takes from
a day to two days to dry the pasta; and whether
volcanic sulphur in the air betters the taste I know
not, but in the lee of Vesuvius, as of Etna, the sub-
urbs are whitish-yellow with drying pasta, like a
floury wash-day.

And now we are at the real mill of Giardini,
small and hard to find, but a pretty picture against
the background of the steep hill. It is almost the
only one remaining of many that used to function
along the torrent. The wheat is brought by peasants

HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 351

who have patches of ground or who get grain as
part wages. I often see women sifting wheat pre-
paring to send it down to be ground.

The mill is overshot. The grain is weighed and
poured into a feeding-trough from which it is run
between two small mill-stones and issues into sacks.
And, as the miller says the saints make good flour,
others may wish to know with what pictures the
hopper is covered. They are the Madonna della
Catena, a crucifix, San Giuseppe, Alfio and his
brothers, Filadelfo and Cirino, and others— good
workmanlike saints, all of them.

CHAPTER V
Speed the Plow!

Mark, too, when from on high out of the clouds you shall
have heard the voice of the crane uttering its yearly cry,
which both brings the signal for plowing and points the
season of rainy winter, but gnaws the heart of the man that
hath no oxen. — Hesiod, Works and Days; Banks's Trans.

Retracing Gna Ciccia's flour from her oven back
to the mill and thence to the sower and the plow
was a long trail.

It led back to Rome and Egypt ; across the sea to
the United States; back again to Sicily with the
returning emigrants. It united the most incongru-
ous seeming elements of old and new.

Consider merely the plow — not the symbol; the
tool. You may see in many parts of Sicily the
ancient Egyptian plow described by Maspero in
"The Dawn of Civilization"; a larger hoe, drawn
by oxen. A bas relief from the tomb of Ti shows
one less primitive than that of Sicily often is. It
actually had two handles !

In plow-making the bend of the wood is utilized.
Two sticks fitted and spiked together at one end to
form the proper angle at the other, the longer and
lighter one turned up and smoothed to a handle —

352

Plowman Homeward Bound

SPEED THE PLOW! 3 53

this is a plow. The end is sharpened at the point
and hardened by fire or shod with iron. A brace
is set between the sticks a little back of the coulter.
A ruder plow may be made of two branches or the
natural knee of a tree; the bigger stem, placed
lowest and smoothed at the bottom, serves as the
share; an upright stick is the handle.

Like the Egyptian fellah or the rayah of Asia
Minor, the Sicilian peasant sows by hand and plows
or scratches in the seed. To restore fertility to great
areas impoverished by latifundia since Roman
times, resort is made to fallow, which Hesoid calls
"a guardian from death-and-ruin and a soother of
children.'*

When plowing is finished the plow is reversed;
the share catches on the yoke of the animals that
draw it, and with the end of the handle trailing on
the ground it is taken home. As in Ovid

. . . what time the laboring hind, released,
The plow reversing, yokes it to his beast.

Pliny describes the plowshare as "a lever fur-
nished with a pointed beak; while another variety,
used in light, easy soils, does not present an edge
projecting from the sharebeam throughout, but only
a small point at the extremity" ; but he speaks of
a newly invented plow with two small wheels used
in the Grisons — much as an Italian of to-day would
describe a gang-plow made in Chicago and bought
by a Sicilian co-operative association.

354 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

The thrashing floor derives as anciently and
honorably. Varro says it "should be on high ground
so that the wind can blow upon it from all direc-
tions, preferably round, with the middle slightly
raised. It should be paved with well-packed earth,
best of all clay, so that it may not crack in the sun,
and water collect.' ' And so it is made now. The
sheaves are brought on the backs of mules or don-
keys. Threshing is done by treading the grain be-
neath the feet of animals, men stirring it with
wooden forks. To winnow the grain, it is tossed in
the air — and we see why Varro wanted free access
for the wind. The heavier grain falls straight, the
chaff is blown away. A sieve is used for more care-
ful screening.

Crude? Well, a great American farmer, George
Washington, wrote to Gen. Karry Lee: "The model
(of an English threshing machine) brought over
by the English farmers may also be a good one, but
the utility of it among careless negroes and ignorant
overseers will depend absolutely upon the simplicity
of the construction — I have seen so much of the
beginning and ending of new inventions that I have
almost resolved to go on in the old way of treading
until I get settled again at home and can attend my-
self to the management of one — I have one of the
most convenient barns in this or perhaps any other
country, where thirty hands may with great ease
be employed in threshing. Half the wheat of the
farm was actually stored in this barn in the straw

SPEED THE PLOW! 355

by my orders for threshing ; notwithstanding, when
I came home about the middle of September, I
found a treading yard not thirty feet from the barn
door, the wheat again brought out of the barn, and
horses treading it out in an open exposure liable to
the vicissitudes of the weather."

The anonymous "Virginia Farmer" who has de-
scribed for us "Roman Farm Management" has set
down many such curious parallels. In Varro's
time the peasant sowed and reaped substantially
the same amount of wheat per acre as the American
farmer to-day. Varro's shrewd advice that you
should "reserve ground for planting hemp, flax,
rush and Spanish broom (spartum) which serve to
make shoes for the cattle, thread, cord and rope"
reads like the appeal of a State agricultural college
in our own South for diversified farming.

There are processes more primitive. Many is-
landers have tiny patches of wheat snuggled in
among other crops, the yield of which is reaped,
like nearly all Sicilian grain, with the sickle, beaten
out in small quantities at home and winnowed in a
sieve on the doorstep. When the contadino who
has emigrated to the United States comes back to
Sicily he buys a small farm. For a time he rather
puts on airs ; does not want to work. Gradually the
soil draws him back. He may enlarge his acres by
hiring, like his neighbors, from the great land-
owners through their agents on the share-and-share
system, the landlord furnishing the seed, the man

356 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

the labor. Or, more likely, he will seek the "co-
operative" and modern crop machinery.

From the door of my hotel in Siracusa I set out
in a carriage one day at dawn to follow the city-
dwelling peasants out to their patches of ground;
and to discovery beyond. As we neared the bridge
over the Ortygia the street was full of men and
women going out to work. Sometimes they spend
as many as three hours going to their tasks and re-
turning for the shelter and companionship of the
town. Some were on foot, with a bag across the
shoulder and perhaps a cricle of bread hanging
with a wide straw hat from the other arm; some
were on mules or pattering donkeys.

As we left the city and turned toward Canicattini,
I began to see peasants already at work, reaping
with sickles. Their heads were bound with red ker-
chiefs, their faces burnt almost as black as Moors.
With dexterous movements others bound sheaves of
cut grain. Behind the reapers and binders followed
gleaners, as in Bible times, each woman with a huge
canvas apron or sack at her back. The heads they
gathered seemed scanty. Each wore her red ker-
chief ; each was as dark as the men. The proprietors
expect the workers to be in the field by daylight
and to work, with intervals for food and rest, until
seven at night. Some give only a money wage;
others supplement it with cheese, olives and other
bread-accompaniment, with wine at discretion.

The plain below Epipolse was luxuriant with

SPEED THE PLOW! 357

olives and almonds, lemons and vines — the strong
perfume of the grape blossoms filling the air. But
after a little we began to climb into less fertile
country, so stony that I ceased to wonder that reap-
ing is done by hand. "Machines destroy them-
selves," said the driver. It was a marvel that any
grain could be raised; yet where the outcropping
was most obtrusive was always the yellow wheat,
with undergrowth of poppies between the stones.
Here and there were stone walls six feet high to
keep off hungry animals. On fallow land overgrown
with thistles and white morning glories were graz-
ing sheep and goats. By the roadside were wild
artichokes in abundance; the driver called them
"time-killers," they are so small.

Up the ladder of Canicattini we went, so called
because it climbs swiftly through country so barren
that even olive trees become scanty. Then again we
came into wheat fields and vineyards through which
we fared to the one long street of the town, all
white houses one story high, each with door and
single window frame. Then up again through more
rock desert, ever climbing, ever watching the reap-
ers at their hot work, winding through the passes of
the hills of Palazzolo and finally to the rock cave
tombs of Monte Pineta, pierced in the sides of cliffs
so steep that one wonders how bodies were ever laid
there to rest.

The landlady of the little inn has had twelve
children and lost seven. She called me Little One,

358 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

and spoke of far-away America, to which so many
of this place have gone. So few tourists come that
she and the custode of the tombs remember them
all for years — but there are links with America,
none the less ; for, passing through Floridia on our
return, we found the greatest building activity I
had seen in Sicily, the masons at work after seven
o'clock at night. Streets and streets of new houses
were going up, each white, of one story, with a
frontage of fifteen to twenty feet; clean, neat
houses, if tiny. They were built by the returning
emigrants from America, and such new quarters are
called "the American houses." They are surrounded
by luxuriant vineyards, olive and almond orchards
and the inevitable wheat filling the gores between.
In time these staring new houses will be wreathed
like their ancient neighbors with low arbors of
clinging vines.

And they told me that at Belvidere, a mile beyond
Epipolse, only one thousand were left of the one
thousand five hundred inhabitants; five hundred
men and boys were in America ! There will be more
little white houses when some of them come back.

Even-where the same story. Following the plow
to Monte San Giuliano in an antomobile bus which
strangely contrasts with sickles and threshing floors,
we stopped at a rare steam mill to deliver bags of
wheat and take in bags of flour; but even from such
advantages the men thereabouts emigrated hun-
dreds at a time. In America they make fortunes in

The "American Houses'

More Houses of Returned Emigrants

SPEED THE PLOW! 359

two or three years ; sometimes they come home and
stay ; sometimes they make a second voyage ; in the
end they buy a bit of land and settle down; so that
in the same region there are both small proprietors
and the estates owned by rich nobles.

In San Giuliano itself I was reminded at once
of the steam mill and of Gna Ciccia's painful
labors by three old women working a hand mill for
the grinding of wheat; an ancient quern of little
mill-stones in the shape of larger ones, the flour
issuing in driblets into a crock on the floor. The
women grasp a bar to turn the stones, as they do in
Palestine, as the twelve slaves did in the palace of
Ulysses, as the Greeks of the Archipelago do now.

There is much money at the Post Office, sent from
America. Emigration interferes with the marriage
of the girls, though the returning men marry, rather
later in life than if they had stayed. The custode
of the castle, who carries a gun, wanted to know if
I could not recommend him as armed guard to some
rich American family ; half a generation of tourists
could vouch for his honesty.

The boy called Candela who acted as guide at San
Giuliano never ate meat except at carnival and on
holidays. In the morning he had bread and olives ;
at noon bread and finocchi; or once or twice a
week salt fish; at night minestra. "Signora mia,"
he asked, "what should I do with meat? It is for
you others, not for us." Candela had been at school
and could read and write. He had learned a few

36o BY-PATHS IN SICILY

words of English from some ladies who stayed a
month on the mountain — he thought because they
had so much knitting to do they could not finish it.
He showed me a five-cent piece given him by a
tourist and pointed to the head of Liberty: "Amer-
ica, then, is not a republic ?" But republic or not,
all the countryside was going there.

How, in returning, the adventurers aid in the
stirring up of Sicily I wished to hear now, not from
reapers and gleaners singly, and little boys dreaming
of America, but at headquarters of intelligence.
The Advocate lo Vetere, a specialist in urging and
arranging for co-operation on the soil, was of such
information an authoritative source, and to him I
went. There were at that time, he told me, three
hundred and forty-two co-operative societies in
Sicily, mostly in the provinces of Caltanisetta and
Girgenti. Perhaps forty had taken land to work
co-operatively. A majority of their members were
men who had come back from America. There is
intelligence at work in these associations, but money
is lacking. To be sure, there is the "credito
agricolo," but the amount that can be loaned one
group is limited. There should be money to buy up
the great estates and split them into holdings. There
is water; deep, but it can be had. Machines are
coming in slowly, though much of the land is too
rough for machine sowing and reaping. Emigra-
tion, says lo Vetere, is a great good, since it brings
into the country not only money but intelligence.

SPEED THE PLOW! 361

The co-operative societies lessen crime ; only men of
good character can belong to them. Boys lie about
their ages to go to work, and age fast ; but so do the
men who go to America. They work so hard to get
money to come home with ; perhaps they do not eat
as much as the American climate demands. They
come home tired. But they bring money and ideas.

The venerated and lamented Giuseppe Pitre, be-
sides his labors as a savant, with some forty
volumes on folk-lore and kindred topics to his
credit, and his wide labors as a practicing physician,
was a Senator and a statesman. Describing condi-
tions which the war must have changed greatly, he
told me that emigration to America had become an
intoxicant. It unsettled people, though not so much
in Catania and the large places — for the immigrant
who in America huddles in tenements is in his own
land a farmer. Home wages were raised by the
drain of labor until land owners did not know what
to do. Taxes frequently ran to forty per cent of
income. The American Sicilians sent home big
sums of money, preferring to deposit in their home
banks, but many districts were too poor to pay the
school tax ; the compulsory education law could not
be enforced.

Whether the emigrants take Socialism to America
or bring it back from there is like the old question
whether the bird or the egg came first. It is a
power in the towns, and is becoming a power behind
the plow. Deputy Giuseppe De Felice, middle-

362 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

aged, a little gray, stout, big for a Sicilian, net
much given to Latin oratory, earnest and sincere,
is one of the great leaders of the movement and a
powerful man in Sicily.

Him I asked about conditions in Catania and in
the great Etna-enriched plain to which its city-
dwelling laborers go out for work upon the fields.
He was basing great hopes which the war must have
rudely shocked upon the labor leagues and the
Catania Chamber of Labor. The city gives rooms
for the league meetings rent free, with lighting and
a little money for expenses. The members hire
a doctor for each league, who is paid perhaps five
hundred lire a year. Each quarter of the city has
its public doctor, but workingmen prefer the physi-
cians employed by their leagues.

De Felice favored emigration. It had, with the
action of the leagues, raised wages for those who
stayed, while those who go and come back are not
the same people. Away, they pour a stream of
wealth into the country; returning, their minds are
quicker and they join in co-operative and other for-
ward movements — if they stay. Illiteracy one can-
not estimate, since the last census was taken in 1901.
In all Sicily it may be forty-five per cent, including
the smaller centers.

But was not De Felice, here, too optimistic?
Girls are not sent to school as generally as the boys
who figure in the army statistics. Other authorities
set the percentage lower. Nothing could be finer

Pictures Made for "Babbo in America'

SPEED THE PLOW! 363

in spirit than the Francesco Crispi school which I
had visited in Palermo, with its eleven hundred
pupils— the Sicilian parallel of our "little red school
house," since most peasants live in towns. Here are
none of the beautiful gymnasiums and assembly
halls of American city schools; but what American
school has classes in fencing? And how many
teach, once a week, "rights and duties" in the true
Mazzinian spirit — one's duties toward his country
and his fellow men?

The children look intelligent; many of them
beautiful, with fine oval faces. They read, it seems
to me, with more expression than American children
of the same age and are more fond of reciting
poetry. They are neatly dressed and have been
carefully trained in politeness. They rise with one
accord as one enters the room. Always in such a
school are some children who made the beginnings
of school education in New York, or near the
aqueduct works of Mt. Kisco or the steel mills of
"Pittisborgo."

De Felice spoke frankly of such festivals as that
of Sant' Alfio as relics of paganism, commercial-
ized, with which one must be patient a little longer.
Italy has neglected the South; it should have given
the communes all the proceeds of the sale of the
lands of the religious congregations for public
works. Naturally De Felice did not favor dividing
commune lands among small owners, because they
would be obliged to sell them again and the big

364 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

owners would pick up the little farms one at a
time as they have done in the past. So Arthur
Young, studying French farming just before the
revolution of 1790, did not favor dividing the es-
tates, as was so soon to be done, preferring the effi-
ciency of larger operations.

De Felice is of the fertile coastal plain, the till-
age lands. Castrogiovanni is in the grazing coun-
try of high hills; and Napoleone Colaianni, the
veteran Deputy, is its prophet and spokesman in the
Roman Congress. He says — and I thought at once
of the cattle reivers of the Scottish Border and
other fierce bands in hill forays — that one reason
why Sicily has but one hundred and sixty-four
cattle for each one thousand inhabitants, while
France, Germany and Great Britain have, or had
before the war, from two hundred and sixty-eight
to three hundred and eighty-three, is the activity
of cattle stealers, carried on under a system which
subjects the owner, if he seeks to prevent or pun-
ish the theft, to the danger of having his remaining
stock killed, himself shot at or taken for ransom,
and his buildings burned. How are capitalists to
be attracted to an industry, however lucrative, in
which they are likely to lose their all without
redress?

"I remember," says Signor Colaianni, "two
plucky young men from Argentina who on their
return from that far-away land, where they had
saved up forty thousand lire, full of faith bought

SPEED THE PLOW! 365

thirty-two animals of the finest breed from fanciers
at Caltavutoro and other villages to devote them-
selves to stock-farming. They were fancy farmers
exactly one week and one day. Eight days after
they had taken the beasts to the grazing ground
came the word that all their stock had been taken
by bandits."

Colaianni tried to do something for the young
men, but without success. How should these re-
turned emigrants of modest means hope to escape
a toll which was laid upon great landlords, like
Baron Lombardo of Canicatti and Baron Sabatini
of Petralia; on resourceful lawyers like the Advo-
cate Algozine of Leonforte — the very town where
the young Argentine adventurers came to grief —
and the Advocate Pace di Bella of Bronte? No;
the plucky pair went back to Argentina to make
another fortune. Cattle stealing will lessen with
better courts, roads, detective service, schools, hy-
gienic service; they had only one lifetime to spend
and could not wait.

The Sicily that is a garden, the Sicily known
chiefly to the tourist, the smiling shore of the sea,
is only one-quarter of the island. The frowning in-
terior, of the wheat fields and the wide estates and
the big landlords with their armed and mounted
guards, is three-quarters of the whole area. Here
the estates that existed even before Roman times,
intensified by the Norman baronage, modified now
for the better, now for the worse, in constant three-

366 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

cornered struggles between serfs, kings and nobles,
exist to our day. The fall of feudalism, so far as
it did fall, made it easier for a careless owner to
lose his property, but also easier for a more nig-
gardly master to gain it — and no easier at all for
the workers to secure its division.

The modern land question met Garibaldi at
Marsala, marched with him into Palermo, dogged
him to the Strait. Franchetti writes that the North
Italian government has misunderstood Sicilian con-
ditions, much as England misunderstood Irish land
systems a century ago; and that the confiscation
of church properties made matters worse. The
lands fell into the hands of large owners, and the
peasants suffered a disaster, losing age-old privileges
and being driven from their homes.

As in France, the new legislation aimed at creat-
ing small proprietors, but the auctions of church
lands took capital out of circulation, so that peasants
who took small holdings could get no advances to
work their grounds and fell into the hands of
usurers. Usually they lost their lands, the estates
became wider than before, rents rose and owners
fattened, while the peasants, no longer allowed to
live in the feuds, to gather wood, to pasture their
animals, bore a rule harder than of old.

Inevitably there followed secret organizations,
revolts, bloodshed, until public opinion began to
take the Sicilian land question seriously. Emigra-
tion supplied a harsh remedy, so far as wages went,

SPEED THE PLOW! 367

but found or forced no cure for lack of water; for
the closing of ancient rights-of-way by new owners ;
for the absentee system, caused as often by fear as
by greed; for the armed rural guards who play
upon the timidity of city owners to prolong their
hold; for the flocking of peasants into town to find
more congenial labor.

And all this is as much an American question as
was the famine in Ireland in 1847. It has an im-
mediately practical bearing not only upon the im-
migration of Sicilians into the United States, but
upon their proclivity for shooting robins when they
get here, in the country ; and in the city their cynical
views about the police and the courts of law. With
them they bring their unwillingness to seek legal re-
dress for wrongs suffered; their fear of testifying
against desperadoes; their "mafioso" code of honor.
Upon American soil their tribute to the brigand
scarcely ceases, and for the landlord the "bosso" and
the padrone furnish a substitute to be feared or
hated.

To understand is to pardon. To teach is to win.
Something we may teach ourselves. The Italian is
possibly the only element in our immigration whose
children are less healthy in the new country than in
the old. The men, coming from the farms, may
suffer less on the canal and aqueduct, in spite of
the bad housing of labor camps and loneliness for
home faces and the beauty of the old land. The
women and children, accustomed to live in the open

368 BY-PATHS IN SICILY

air, huddle into swarming tenements and work in
city factories. Even in mining regions, factories
follow the "labor supply" to congested towns. In
New England the factory itself is a family affair,
and there are at least fewer domestic tragedies of
alienation, desertion, bigamy.

But how quick the children are in school ! How
the Latin genius shows in handiwork shaming our
clumsier Northern fingers! How the little ones
bring to their schools the gift of song and the sun-
shine of affection! They are the true immigrants;
they see, as their parents cannot, what America
really means, the good and the bad alike, the hard-
ships, but also the opportunities. Through them we
conquer prejudice and suspicion.

And the fathers and mothers, unlettered as they
are, and inevitably the prey of exploiters and agita-
tors of their own race — have we tried to teach them
also? Have we shown proper gratitude and appre-
ciation in treatment? Have we granted them the
courteous address which is essential to their honest
pride? Have we any conception of the debt we
owe to their patient toil in the darkness of the mine,
the danger of the trench, the service of the rising
walls of new homes?

The United States itself is a League of Nations.
Let us look to the justice and the love that should
bind it close.

THE END

HUttf1

vsw*-

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

DG865.6F20 BOSS

By-paths in Sicily,

IlillllillNIllilill

1 l?n 00117 3flb5

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "By-paths in Sicily"

See other formats