The Capelon del Dos
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In this legend the central component is a hill (a dos, as the Cembrans say), which divides the valley in upper and lower Cembra valley.
On it, called Dos Venticcia, there's a big erratic boulder that, not having succeeded in its run to go over the hill, it has remained leant on the top appearing like a huge hat at a rakish angle. The rock is known as the Capelòn del Dos (literally the big hat of the hill).
This would have stimulated the fantasy of the valley dwellers already in the most remote ages; as Elio Antonelli says: «Typically prehistoric for the magical-naturalistic elements: echo, water, stone, it's the legend of the Capelon del Dos bound with the rise of Venticcia. Nonetheless also in this tale, that shows attempts of organization in units, superimpositions and later influences can be recognized.» (Segonzano e Sevignano page 72 [quote translated by me]).
Once upon a time there was a brute who scared the inhabitants of the valley. He used to wear a hideous hat (you know that in the legends wickedness is always associated to ugliness) and used to do any kind of vile deeds towards the dwellers of Segonzano: he scared the people, stole the animals, ruined the fields…
The people, exasperated by this situations, collected a precious gift to offer to the divinity of the Dos Venticcia, venerated from time immemorial, in exchange for the release from this scourge.
The offer was made by seven bowls of solid gold (the legend is also known as “The treasure of the seven golden bowls”): these are perhaps an echo of the golden apple that Parides offered to Aphrodite, laying in this way the basis for the Trojan War, or of the golden apples that Hippomenes dropped during the race with Atalanta (the mythical female hunter, not the football team.)
But the wicked man, who evidently was gifted with magical powers, during a stormy night was able to take possession of the bowls.
This had gone really too far for the people of Segonzano, who decided to teach him a hard lesson . They waited for him and as soon as he had arrived they tried to seize him. But the man, wriggling strongly, managed to free an arm, took the hat and threw it towards the Dos Venticcia: immediately the man vanished, leaving the assailants astonished.
So everyone, trying to contain the fear, rushed to the hill and found that the hat had turned into a huge stone; no traces of the brute!
The people thought that the treasure could be under the stone, but nobody had the nerve to search in that place full of magics and mysteries.
At the end a brave man, in the Christmas Eve, dared to dig under the Capelon. When a metal sound under his pickaxe announced that his search had had success, the man burst out with joy: «Le ghè!» (i.e. “they're there” in Cembran).
People say that when you find a valuable object, the best way to avoid that it disappears is to pretend nothing happened: in this story, as soon as the discoverer had given out triumphally the bowls sank toward the center of the earth.
The unwise man could only come back home disillusioned.
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© 2005, Fabio Vassallo