"The
goblins" Gian Mario Andrico | ||
Mysterious
and strange stories, fairy tales or legends?
There are no longer any demonized by modern pedagogy which, by dint of being afraid of the shadow of shadows, has forgotten how the desire to venture into the world of wonders is taught.
Yet in long past ago, the winter evenings were told with such pathos that they managed to arouse such and many anxieties that the boys who listened to them took them inside for the rest of their days and inculcated fear no longer dilutes, not even by men stoned.
And it is precisely this aspect judged, mistakenly, negatively that suggested to the discipline that studies theorics, psychology and teaching, to ban the legends and creatures that populated them. Forever!
But I have to tell you this…
In those days, under the mighty Sforza fortress: the wood, the source, the cliff ... everything was god. If on the one hand the fertile fields responded timidly to the hopes of most, on the other hand here are vast plagues desolately uncultivated, bleak, scattered with willows, of ferns and reeds immersed in stagnant and unhealthy waters to communicate a sense of oppression and sadness. The impenetrable forests that sank from Soncino to the castle of Pontevico on the other side, seemed to accompany the lazy river current. Where the high oaks left flashes of light in the sun, there are brambles, elderberry belts, wild watercress spots and patches of false lami nettle. From the few diligently torn clearings to the bush, dense columns of smoke rose which spread smelly smells and tastes of misery through the air. On the top of a high whitish plane tree the croaking of a black crow remembered that the plaga lived.
Yes, but the pixies?
Some specimens may have remained. Most, however, have gone away. It was too difficult now ... They tried, poor creatures, to resist. They went all out. Then they left. It was inevitable that it would happen.
If once the goblins made a joke, people noticed it.
Like when a lock of hair falls on the forehead, or when in the room and without the slightest presence of a draft, the candle is extinguished. Yes, goodnight, which candle? Where did the old, dear tallow candles go?
In recent times in the world, the poor goblins have developed a series of jokes to touch on rudeness, trespassing in the grotesque, in heavy spite. But there has never been a verse. Nobody, I repeat none of the living who swear against them, who realizes their presence, their existence. So they went away. Where is it? to the usual place far away…
In human memory, the last goblin whose presence is documented in Soncino lived in the “ Captain's Room ”, located in the keep of the fortress built there. He lived with his lord in perfect harmony and complicity. He served him in the little things that his tiny size allowed him. They joked supremely and the two were happy with each other. The elf of the Bassa, it is said, enjoyed pulling, on colder winter nights, the blankets of the bed where the Marquis said, in Soncino's, the “ old ” slept: a rude soldier sent by the Duke of Milan after having done so, in fact, marquis, that is defender of the “ brand ”, which is the territory that “ marked ” the border, in this case between the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Venice.
About 12 centimeters tall, the elf wore a 7 cm green hat. Just as it was green in color, everything was bordered, to better blend in those few times that ventured out of the castle, wandering in the flat and green plaga that luxuriantly grew on the opposite banks of the Oglio. He wore a hollow willow handle on his belt: inside a stone useful for grinding the knife he always had with him. He is said to be a great prankster. Always cheerful and happy he was saddened ( like all his lineage ) in the last era of the world, that is ours.
We have revealed the reason, it seems to us clearly, just above.
Gian Mario Andrico
