This study deals with oral traditions that are little documented in Umbria. It sets down and analyses texts recorded from the living voice of elderly informants; it brings out the meanings attached to places, the function they performed, the cultural needs they satisfied, and the vision of the world that shines through them. The recovery of these tales, saved from erosion and loss, allows us to become aware both of our own past reality and of our relationship with the land and the supernatural.

“Over there, they say, there’s a treasure!” Coins, broody hens and chicks, calves… all of gold!

Various legends have been handed down about these and other treasures, and to this day they preserve the magical elements typical of popular storytelling (Thompson, 1967).

In Umbria[1], according to a legendary tradition found in every corner of Europe, numerous and extraordinary treasures lie hidden in isolated, rugged, hard-to-reach places: ideal settings for fearful encounters, places “dove se diceva che ce stava la paura,” where dread was said to dwell. Ruined towers, abandoned castles and the remains of ancient walls all helped to shape a collective imagination steeped in fear and wonder, one that peopled our land with diabolical figures and made it mysterious and dangerous.

Admittedly, over the last few decades the aura of mystery surrounding these places has begun to fade: the depopulation of the countryside and the mountains, urbanisation and the diversification of economic activity have also scattered much of the historical and magical memory bound up with them. And yet local legends, by virtue of their brevity and of their attachment to specific, identifiable episodes, monuments and places, still represent the least perishable part of what remains of the narrative heritage of our oral tradition[2]. All the more so because, in the local imagination, memory and legend have stayed remarkably alive, since the events recounted became interwoven with people’s real lives: those interviewed, in fact, often linked the search for a treasure to things that had happened to acquaintances or relatives.

The stories, which I gathered from the living voice of elderly people, vary from place to place; yet in all of them one can recognise the residue of archaic beliefs and tales, or of historical events that truly happened but were later distorted and magnified by the imagination.

The treasures are of various kinds. Some consist of loot hidden away by night by thieves and brigands, but they might equally be ancient grave goods, or the precious belongings that nobles and rich men, hard-pressed by invaders and about to abandon their homes, would bury underground in the hope of recovering them on their return. A chariot all of gold, laden with coins and golden armour, is said to lie at the bottom of Lake Trasimeno: along the shores of the lake they say it is the treasure of Hannibal the Carthaginian, who clashed with the Romans in the famous Battle of Lake Trasimeno (217 BC). And again: beside the Chapel of San Giuliano on Isola Polvese, “under a great stone… a treasure lay hidden, a cart full of gold… and it seems someone once tried to prise it loose…”; but when the stone was lifted, not a trace of it was found (Cecchini, 2002, p. 37). Other riches of various kinds, sought and never found, are said to lie hidden at Pontenuovo di Torgiano (Perugia), at the foot of the bridge over the Chiascio. An unidentified treasure is said to be kept among the ruins of the castle of Landolina, near Annifo (between Foligno and Nocera), and there is a treasure in the castle of Poggiomanente (Umbertide) as well. It is said, too, that at Pontefelcino (though no one knows quite where), during the siege of Perugia (in the year 547), the wife of Totila was buried together with her entire treasure. And at Valtopina they say that a golden calf was hidden, along with other precious goods, by a queen named Cornelia in an underground tunnel of the castle.

There are golden broody hens hidden away, too, together with their (seven, twelve, or a thousand) chicks, likewise of gold, in various parts of our region; but no one has ever managed to see them or to lay hands on them. One hen with her chicks is said to be near Nocera, where it is supposedly buried with a statue and a golden sword; another at Santa Anatolia di Narco, where a damned soul guards it, chicks and all, in a cave; and yet another is said to be near Colfiorito. Still another appears to be hidden beneath the tower of Matigge, at Trevi, as told in the legend that follows:

A broody hen with golden chicks at Trevi

“It’s a story I’ve always heard. My dad used to tell it. Long ago, from Trevi to Foligno there were only three or four houses, and the tower of Matigge was a gathering place for brigands; and he’d say that under the tower there’s supposed to be a passage that comes out I don’t know where, and that down there was a treasure, a famous treasure, which is a broody hen with all her golden chicks.

My mum was forever going on about this biocca, this old brood hen, and she’d say that whoever passed down there went looking for the treasure. But nobody ever found it, though they searched. There is a secret passage, all the same, that the brigands used to hide themselves, to stash the stolen goods, to slip away from the carabinieri.

This one I heard; they used to tell it. That’s the kind of thing they’d tell by the fireside too, these were the things they told” (Cecchini, 2004, pp. 84-85).

Some legends, moreover, preserve elements of the mythological tradition of the Golden Fleece: the monster (serpent or dragon) that guards the fleece in Greco-Roman mythology is replaced by the Devil who, in medieval popular literature, is “the genius of buried wealth” and the heir of the god Pluto (Di Nola, 1976, p. 325; see also Graf, 1980, p. 89).

Gold Marengos (Scheggia, 1997)[3]

“There was a woman who healed people with herbs, and she had a few books in which she studied the plants. They say that one day, while she was looking through these books, one of them began to jump about, and this book was saying: – Comanda, comanda! – Command me, command me!

It was the Book of Command, which in those days was regarded as the Devil’s book. She ran out of the house screaming, because she was afraid of this book, and the people who saw her said:

– Throw it in the fire! –

So she threw it into the fire; but instead of burning, the book kept coming back out of the flames and went on jumping about, saying: – Comanda, comanda! –

Then they buried it.

The legend says that there, where this book was buried, years later they found the gold marengos”.

The presence of the Devil is one of the recurring elements in these legends, along with the extraordinary size of the treasure, the procedures (rituals and taboos) for bringing it back to the light, the trials to be overcome, and fear. In the Umbrian stories too, the Devil is the absolute master and guardian of the riches hidden underground, and in that guise he “does everything he can to frighten off anyone who approaches the place where ‘the treasure’ lies hidden” (Nicasi, 1912, p. 168). The underground is an infernal place and therefore dangerous, bound up with death (Cocchiara, 1949). Beyond the variations in detail, what is striking is the contact that these legends bring about between the human world and the supernatural world through the dimension of the terrifying. This is their most notable feature.

Over the place where the treasure lies hidden there hovers, in fact, an entity (a spirit or a diabolical force) that guards the treasure and resists its removal; and even when it does not appear, it makes itself felt in other forms, thwarting the seekers and driving them off before the find. For this reason all the tales are charged with a powerful sense of drama: the search unfolds in an atmosphere of tension, and from the beginning of the undertaking to its end grave dangers loom over the seekers. What is more, before one can begin to dig into the earth, the treasure must be freed from the curse that weighs upon it; for at the moment of concealment certain magical operations were performed, meant to enchant the treasure and to prevent its discovery. According to a precise ritual, a person was killed on the spot[4] and their soul set to guard it (Lombardi Satriani, 1971; Cocchiara 1978); and so certain particular things, however unlikely to happen, must take place over the hiding place in order to disenchant the treasure and make it accessible. As early as the beginning of the twentieth century, Giuseppe Nicasi[5] (1912), who made an important contribution to our knowledge of the folklore of the Upper Tiber Valley, recorded the following testimony about the motif of the murder, followed here by two more recent tales:

The Curse

“It is told that […] a thief, wishing to prevent the discovery of certain valuables he had stolen and buried underground in a wood, killed a poor wayfarer and buried his body there, commanding the dead man’s soul never to leave that spot until some person or other should come, alone, to eat a plate of macaroni over the hidden objects.

The killer believed himself alone in the wood; but up a nearby tree, which he had climbed to gather mistletoe, sat a peasant who, having seen and heard everything, waited for the wrongdoer to move off, then ran home to have the macaroni prepared and carried a plateful to the appointed place. Having eaten it right there, he was able to take possession of the hidden treasure without difficulty” (p. 169).

The bread from a new oven and the fried meat of a white horse (San Venanzo, 1996)

“They say a certain man buried his money and covered it over well. Then he summoned a soul that was to stay there and watch over that money. That soul was the Devil. He said:

– You shall leave this place only when a person, alone, eats right here above it the bread of a new oven and the fried meat of a white horse –.

It was no easy thing for anyone to go and eat on that precise spot!”

A table of iron and steel at Giano

“Dad used to tell me about a girl who had climbed up a tree, and beneath her some ruffians happen along, kill a man and bury him there with the money. Now, they say that to get hold of it you have to eat off a table of iron and steel: you must make an omelette of six eggs and then eat it on a table of iron and steel.

The girl goes home and says: – They’ve killed a man –. From the tree she had seen and heard it all. Her parents say: – Well then, let’s do this thing –. They take the plough, turn it upside down and make this six-egg omelette on it, because the plough is of iron and steel. And that is how they draw out the money. When they had pulled it out, they heard a voice; but they paid it no mind. As if it were only a fancy. But the money, they found it!” (Cecchini, 2004, p. 83).

Surprising, extravagant procedures, which the seekers nonetheless had to observe with scrupulous precision, even if they were unaware that they were performing a rite: to eat, on the appointed spot, certain foods prepared in a certain way became a ritual and, at the same time, a magical act.

But to disenchant a treasure is an undertaking as difficult as can be, and full of danger. Above all it holds a threat: the Devil does not readily give up what is his, and he may appear before the seekers without warning. If they do not work in total secrecy, they not only lose the treasure but are punished as well. Anyone, for instance, who does not dig alone as prescribed among the ruins of a castle gets slapped. This is what happens in

A treasure in the castle of Morrano (Terni, 1996)

“There’s a bridge at Morrano, and before the bridge there are the ruins of a castle. They say that whoever lived there had buried a treasure somewhere nearby and, so as not to be found out, had shod his horse with the shoes on backwards.

The ending I don’t know. Whether they took it or didn’t take it, I couldn’t say. I know there’s this legend, and that people from Morrano went there too, to see whether it was true that there was this treasure. And a certain B. my father used to tell me, had gone along with a friend, but he was supposed to go alone. And they say that, while they were digging on one side, they felt themselves given two slaps. Whether it’s true I don’t know, but they say the man was in a terrible way from the fright. Afterwards, out of fear, they say nobody ever went there again”.

Certain qualities are needed, too, such as shrewdness, cool nerves, quick reflexes. If he manages to seize the treasure, the seeker must hurry away from the place without turning round, so as to avoid all contact with the beyond: the hiding place may suddenly close in on itself, trapping the seeker, as Cocchiara notes (1945). At Torgiano (Perugia), two men and a woman run just such a risk as, in fear and hope, they dig among the ruins of the castle in search of the treasure they believe buried there:

The treasure in the castle of Rosciano (Torgiano, 1997)

“It was said that in the castle, underground, there were objects of gold. This is an old story that the grandparents have always told. It was said there was a golden bell, or a hen that laid golden eggs. One day three friends, two men and a woman, go to see whether this gold was really there. The woman worked charms; she was a witch.

They make up their minds and go to the castle to dig. It was night and, dig and dig again, all of a sudden a little friar appeared and asked them: – What are you doing? –

And they answered him: – We’re looking for the gold –.

And the friar gives them a warning: – Stop, for if my uncle sees you…! –

But they paid him no heed.

The witch had a priest’s stole and a book, one of those they used for casting out spells. And since they had these things, they felt safe and kept digging. But this little friar showed himself once more. One night, when they come back to dig, he appears dressed all in black and wearing a great cloak, and he puts the same question to them: – What are you doing? –

And they answer: – We’re digging, because there’s gold here –.

The friar gives them the same warning: – Stop! –

This went on a third time. But the third time the friar was very angry, as the three of them later told it.

Digging and digging, they had reached the very point where the gold lay. But at that exact moment they were almost struck by a great sheet of flame, and they found themselves in a dark wood, one on one side and one on the other. They ended up so far from the castle that it took three days to get back home! One of the three came back all scratched. He said that, all of a sudden, he had found himself in the middle of a thornbush and was covered all over in blood. They were terribly frightened, and they told how that time they had seen fear face to face. One of them said it was as if the Devil himself had been there”.

The rash ones, who persist in the search even though warned not to go on, are punished: they are violently driven off before the treasure is found, and so it plunges back into the earth, where it will remain protected and intact with all its mysteries and, above all, in the hands of the Devil.

As a rule the treasure is not found; yet the failure of one attempt does not dissuade others from repeating it. Almost always the venture ends before the unearthing. Suddenly the treasure’s guardian appears and puts the seekers to flight. Usually the Devil manifests himself in person in terrifying shape, or under the guise of other black-clad beings in league with him, but he may also appear in animal form (snarling dogs, snakes, toads, mice…). The fear the seekers feel proves devastating: they lose all sense of safety, while control is exercised by the hidden forces at work in nature. This is plain in

A golden calf at Giove (Terni, 1996)

“There was a serra, a steep rise, in the village. Our grandparents said that whoever went there saw something: either a truly hideous person, or they’d see a snarling dog […] this is a true fact […] a dog or a donkey, they’d see animals so hideous that we said it was the Devil. Well, it came about that two brave young men say:

– Let’s dig and see if we can find this golden calf! –

The two lads set about digging and hoeing, but a huge dog kept coming at them and lunging. They’d drive it off and go on hoeing. In the end they found some old potsherds. But when they began finding these things, they came upon a thing that put such fear into them. They won’t say what it was. From sheer fright, one of them nearly went out of his mind. He filled his room with holy images of every saint and began to lose his head. We said it was the Devil, because whoever goes looking for money goes looking for the Devil! That’s what they used to say once”.

Even when the diabolical entity that hovers over the treasure does not appear, it can still make its presence felt and frighten the seekers all the same, for example by unleashing a storm of wind, hail and thunder, or a blizzard of snow in the height of summer[6]. So it happens in the two legends that follow. In the first, recorded in the mid-nineteenth century by Giovanni Eroli (1858)[7], we also find testimony to how the popular imagination goes to work in creating a fabulous treasure concealed in the “bridge of Narni, in the second pillar of the arch”:

The Fable of the Treasure

“[…] Among the common folk of Narni it is a tradition that the treasure consists of a great biocca (broody hen) of gold, which keeps beneath her wings a thousand chicks likewise of gold; that the Devil has it in his keeping, and woe to whoever touches it. Indeed, some told how, as they were digging, they suddenly saw him appear in flesh and bone, complete with horns and a knobbly tail, with donkey’s ears, hands and feet terribly clawed, eyes of fire, a hog’s tusks, all black, foul and hairy, and so horrible and dreadful as to bring on the asthma and the quartan fever; that at his appearing the earth trembled, the sky turned black and dark, drawing up a wind so furious it could shatter trees and houses, and then rain pouring down in torrents, thick hail, thunder, lightning… in short, a very hell, at which the diggers take to their heels. […] This account is a fola, an idle tale, and yet I think it holds some substance of truth. The ancients were wont to place in the foundations of public buildings of some importance a few coins to remind posterity of the age of their construction; and so Augustus will surely have done in the bridge. The memory of this fact has always been on the lips of the people of Narni; but, as it happens that traditions, growing old, lose their shape, while imagination or the pleasure of others enlarges and colours them, so the few coins truly laid at the foundation for Augustus multiplied in the telling, and so many as to make of them a treasure, which then changed its prosaic form into a poetic one, and behold the gigantic hen with her golden chicks; but some, with fervid imagination, chose to add […] a spectacular half-tragic drama, and behold the fearsome Devil, the clamorous and bitter symphony, the headlong flight” (pp. 173-174).

The treasure in the tower of the Morcicchia (Castel Ritaldi, 2004)

“They said there was a golden calf; they said so, but who knows if it’s true. There was a man, Antonino, who used to go and look around these places where dread was said to dwell. With two others he went to look at the tower of the Morcicchia, because they say that if a man can manage to find the key to this treasure… Nobody knows what treasure it is, but a huge one!

He was told that three people had to go up and had to sleep in the tower; but a mouse was to come out, and if they catch the mouse, it was said: – Rest easy, you’ll get the treasure. –

They went up, it was June, and an evening with so many stars in the sky. They went into the first room and Antonino says: – When the hour comes, wake me! – Otherwise, all three of them dead. He pretended to sleep. Stones would appear and come flying at him, and he threw them out of the window. Then, out comes a mouse. They had to catch it to be sure of getting this fortune, but they couldn’t manage it. Then, all quiet, and there was nothing more. Then, out of fear, they leave the tower.

Outside it was snowing for all it was worth. Antonino told it like this:

– When we came out, the snow was real. It felt like treading on snow. And I couldn’t wait to get home to ask my wife whether, in the meantime, it had snowed there –.

Outside the tower and all around there was snow, and down below nothing, it was all dry. He asked his wife:

– So, around two o’clock last night, was it snowing? –

– Nothing at all! –

But up there, a blizzard!”

Violent, sudden and extraordinary phenomena, which hinder the seekers and frustrate their attempts to carry off the treasure, often appear in the closing part of the legends: they alarm the rash ones, who recognise in them a manifestation of the Devil. And so the underground can go on keeping its treasure and its mysteries. This tale points to the Devil in the guise of the ‘storm-maker’, the figure most feared by our peasants.

The draughts of air and the warm vapours that issue from a cave[8] also strike fear into the workmen who dig in search of a thermal spring. When one of them falls ill, the sickness is held to be the direct consequence of contact with the deadly emissions of the serpent believed to dwell in the cave: a regolo (a dragon) with horns of gold. Zeno Zanetti[9] (1887) gathers together the elements of an affair that took place on the farmstead of the ‘Serpentaro’, near Ascagnano (Monte Corona, Umbertide), so named because the wood swarmed with snakes. After the discovery of a kind of cavern from which a small jet of watery vapour escaped, word at once went round that the hollow was full of serpents and that piercing hisses could be heard inside it: the popular imagination promptly declared it inhabited by a regolo and made of the vapour the monster’s breath (pp. 147-148):

The Cave of the Serpentaro

“[…] The regolo, I was told, is a great serpent whose body is like that of a suckling piglet, with a cat’s head and horns of gold […] It feeds on snakes which, poisoned by its breath, come and throw themselves, as if drawn, into its jaws; it is shut inside a hole in the rock from which, having grown fat, it can no longer emerge, and whoever goes down into that cave is doomed to certain death. Indeed, I shall tell how, to lend weight to the report of a dragon’s presence in that cleft, the following event came about.

It is not ten years since the Marquis Evelino Waddington, living at Ascagnano and having learned of the existence of this cave […] had the idea of having it explored and searching for a thermal spring […] The workmen went down and set to work, but with great dread […] and at once the conviction ran among them that the purpose of the search […] was to track down the regolo, kill it and seize its horns of gold, judged by all to be of inestimable value […] After a few days, some of the workmen, owing perhaps to the exhalations of carbon dioxide that build up at the bottom of the cave, began to feel some difficulty in breathing, and soon there were those who declared that, if they did not desist, the regolo’s breath would kill them all.

At last a farmhand […] having come out of the cave in a sweat, fell ill with a disease of the lungs. That was enough to make everyone certain the poor wretch would die, poisoned by the regolo’s breath.

From that day the excavation work had to be suspended for want of workmen who, fearing death, refused to go on for any wage whatsoever; the farmhand wasted away with consumption and slowly came to his end, confirming the general prediction.

At present no one goes down any longer into the cave of the Serpentaro, and the death of the hapless farmhand gave rise to the legend of the regolo, or dragon, around which every woman and every survivor of the hunt for the golden horns delights in weaving the most varied tall tales”.

Even when the attempts succeed and the longed-for treasure is found, the seekers do not always manage to enjoy it. The central figure suddenly becomes rich and abruptly changes his status, redeeming himself from a destiny of poverty and utter subservience[10]. But the treasure, being still a gift of the Devil, conceals a snare that turns into tragedy: a short time later the lucky man dies. According to the local interpretation, the death is placed in direct relation with the wrongful seizing of the treasure or with the seeker’s greed. Here are three examples (Cecchini, 2004, pp. 83-84, 88):

The money buried at Giano

“There were thieves who had buried a certain sum of money. A legend said it was under a tree that stays green in winter. A man goes up the short road to San Felice and finds this evergreen tree. He starts to look, and there was what there was. And indeed he had found it. A short time later he died”.

A chariot of Corinthian metal at Giano

“A man, to build a house, sets to digging and finds a chariot (a cart) of Corinthian metal. There, you can tell, on account of some war, they had buried it there. He finds a great deal of iron, and it looked like gold, said the sons who did the digging, four strapping young men who, they say, were like mountains; within a few days, dead. And no one could even make out what illness they had. Because the underground is not our property.

A treasure at Torregrosso (Castel Ritaldi)

“On the chiusa (the olive grove), they say it was found. And the man who found it died soon after. He pulled this treasure out, because people saw it. He found it with his sons. As far as I know, there was gold. But he didn’t get to enjoy it, because soon after he died”.

This ending is the key to understanding the function and the meaning of these stories, their true value for the communities: to account both for the sudden enrichment of a member of the community and the consequent change of status, and for the sudden event of death. Facts otherwise incomprehensible thus find an explanation that is mythical yet logical; and this, while it gives a foundation to lived experience, wards off crises in individuals and in the social equilibrium.

The popular imagination also attributes the change to chance and to a stroke of luck:

The bread from a new oven and the fried meat of a white horse (San Venanzo, 1997)

“One evening, a certain man goes into a field with a great deal of money; he digs a hole under a pear tree and buries this money. Just before, however, someone had climbed up the pear tree. Because in the old days people would go by night to steal fruit from other people’s fields, since there was no way of buying it. That man buried the money and covered it over well. Then he summoned a soul that was to stay there and watch over that money. That soul was the Devil.

He said: – You shall leave this place only when a person, alone, eats right here above it the bread of a new oven and the fried meat of a white horse –.

It was no easy thing for anyone to go to that precise spot to eat the bread of a new oven and the fried meat of a white horse. It was very difficult. And there was that person up in the pear tree, keeping still, because he was thinking: – If he sees me, there’ll be trouble –.

He had heard everything and, when the other man had moved off, he too, the one who had climbed the tree to steal the pears, came down and went away. And he set to work: he built this new oven and bought a white horse. Then he killed the horse and prepared the fried meat, just as he had to. Then, when all was ready, at night he went back under that pear tree and ate, all alone, the fried white-horse meat with the bread baked in a new oven. In the end he dug, and found all the money that the man had buried. In the meantime no one had bothered him, because he had done everything he was supposed to do. And so he became rich”.

Treasures do not consist only of fabulous objects, or of things hidden in places heavy with history. Many are the small family hoards buried in humble spots, such as a field or the room of a farmhouse. Here too the legends present a similar narrative pattern: the soul of a dead person appears to a living one in the symbolic realm of a dream and reveals both the place where the treasure is hidden and the means of getting hold of it; but it imposes a prohibition against speaking of it.

According to our informants, the apparitions are necessary because, in keeping with the beliefs, the souls of those who in life hid valuables underground without having time to reveal the hiding place to anyone remain confined near the treasure until it is found. The dead one therefore reveals the hiding place to make amends for the selfishness he showed in life; the lack of solidarity towards one’s relatives is paid for after death, when, in order to find peace, one is compelled to disclose the existence of the precious goods withheld (Nicasi, 1912). Or else the souls of the dead ask the living to take on a debt or an obligation that, in life, they left unsettled. In exchange, they give the living directions for finding a treasure.

Other legends tell us of grateful dead who appear in dreams to reward those who helped them selflessly. The following tale is an example:

The money behind the brick (Fratta Todina, 1995)

“Mum used to tell how once there was a woman here who had no relatives at all. She was alone, poor thing, and always barefoot. It happened that she died suddenly, and no one wanted to touch her, because she was filthy. An aunt of mine, though, tended to her and said: – If I get no reward from her, I’ll get one from the Lord! It’s a work of charity –.

Some time later, she dreamed of her, and the woman said to her: – Only you washed me, and you said: “If I get no reward from her, I’ll get one from the Lord!” But you must have one from me as well. Go up to my house; there’s a brick in such-and-such a place, take out this brick, and there’s the money –.

This woman who had died owned a house, and it had been inherited by someone hardly anyone knew.

And she goes on: – Call your aunt and tell her: “Let’s go up to poor Rosa’s house”. Go up. There’s a brick in such-and-such a place. Pull out this brick, and there’s the money. It’s enough for you and for her, but don’t say I told you this, or that woman won’t let you in –.

She made up some excuse and they went there. But she went straight to the brick. As soon as she moved it, a couple of coins came out, and the other woman, who was a big woman, saw and shoved them out of the house. The money my aunt did see, and there was more of it, but the other woman took it”.

In any case, to reach the treasure does not mean to take possession of it and draw from it the satisfactions hoped for: the unearthed riches can turn in an instant to ash and coal when the seekers break the instructions they were given. In the following tales, the treasure is lost because the secret is not kept as had been required:

A pot of ash (Civitella Benazzone, Gubbio, 1998)

“They used to tell how a woman had dreamed that there was an earthenware pot with two handles and money inside. That soul had also said to her:

– Look, you must sweep in your room and you’ll find something –.

She dreamed it and told her husband. She said to him:

– Yes, yes, it’s true. She told me: “Look in a little corner near the bed!” –

And what did she do? She took a hammer and began to break through the floor. There was something there, but out came a pot full of ash! She had even gone to the priest to tell him the dream, and the priest had said to her: “You must sweep, and keep quiet!” She was not to tell anyone! She, instead, had told her husband and the priest, and so she found nothing”.

The One about the Treasure (Passignano, 1997)

“Money, they dreamed of it, as our grandparents’ grandparents used to say. There was money found in little pans, for instance. It wasn’t stolen money, it belonged to the family. It was the women who took it, because in those days families were large; there were brothers, cousins, wives, and they quarrelled with one another over the money, and each wanted his own share. Then they’d hide it, and when they died, no one knew where they had put it. Later on, someone would dream of it, and in the dream they’d be told that in such-and-such a place this stuff was to be found. And indeed, someone would find it.

They say that sometimes they’d dream the exact spot; but the one who had dreamed it had to go there himself, and he was not to tell anyone. If he told someone else, he wouldn’t find the money, or he’d find coal”.

The pot of money (San Venanzo, 1997)

“A man dreamed of a person who told him where the money was: – Go to such-and-such a place, for there’s a lot of money there. But you’ll see, they’ll play you all sorts of tricks; only you dig and never speak, or you won’t get it –.

This man went there and set to digging, and up pops the Devil. The Devil made the sound of a toad, of a mouse… and he kept calling: – Zio, zio! –, uncle, uncle! – and pulled all sorts of ugly faces. But the man went on digging. Yet, just as he was about to take the pot by the handle to pull it out, all manner of vile beasts leapt on him, mice, snakes, toads… and the Devil shrieked: – Zio, zio! –

At that the man spoke, and said: – Oh, enough! Hai rotto co sto zio! You’ve worn me out with this “uncle”! –

And at that moment it all turned to coal”.

The transformation of the treasure into ash or coal is linked to the belief that buried gold and precious objects are the property of the Devil[11]. It is no accident that in Umbria too it is customary to remove the wedding ring and every other jewel from the dead before burial. It is telling that, to come into possession of the treasure, the seeker must leave a pledge. A trace of this strict obligation is found in the following tale, even though our informant does not speak of a hidden treasure:

The Cave of the Witches (Giano, 2004)

“They used to tell how, up on Monte Martano, there is a cave we call the Cave of the Witches. It is made of many rooms, one after another, and they say that whoever goes in loses all sense of direction. And besides, you must not go in wearing rings, nor a wedding band, nor earrings, nor anything. A relative of G.’s, who had gone in, did find the way out after a while, but he no longer had his wedding ring on his finger. Those who went in, as I’ve heard tell, were the ones wearing gold jewellery, precious things; but when they came out, they had them no longer”.

The protagonist of the tale, when he returns to the surface, realises that he no longer has his wedding ring on his finger. The pledge must be something indestructible, as a ring precisely is, the symbol of an indissoluble union. And it must be of gold, since this is the element most suited to disenchanting the treasure.

The tales, then, have the power to give a logical sense to the unexpected or grievous events of life: they place them within a system of thought that makes them acceptable, thus averting existential crises. That is, to answer the deep need to give an explanation for real events, people turn to the Devil, an entity that is part of the community’s ideology. In the popular conception, indeed, the Devil is the cause of every misfortune, and to him is attributed even the tragic event of death. Regarded as the “absolute master of the riches hidden underground […] he takes his revenge, even with death, against anyone who dares to draw them out of the earth. This is why, should treasures be found, one must make use of the labour of animals to remove them from the place where they lie, so that the consequences of the Devil’s wrath may fall upon the beasts” (Nicasi, 1912, p. 168).

In these legends the popular imagination also reproduces the reciprocal relations between the living and the dead: through them, the one intervenes to alter the other’s state of lack (Zanotelli, 2004). The dead, who lack peace, win a spiritual relief and their final dwelling in the beyond; the living, who lack well-being, can obtain a material relief, an immediate wealth that resolves their state of want. To reveal the hiding place of a treasure is therefore equivalent to making a gift to the living. But the gift of the dead does not consist simply in material wealth. There is a greater gift, significant at the cultural level, whose recipient is the whole community and which concerns the reproduction of social relations among the living.

These legends, like the other tales of the oral tradition, until a few decades ago performed a pedagogical function, the very reason for their existence: they were a tool the communities used to hand on their cultural order to the new generations. On the one hand, in fact, they underscored the negative traits of those who seek easy riches, such as the greed and selfishness that will lead them to failure and death; on the other, they brought out the positive moral qualities, such as courage and the capacity to endure, honesty and generosity. And, while they transmitted beliefs and representations of reality, our legends helped to explain natural phenomena and individual and social identities. They reveal, indeed, close ties with the values and norms that pointed to the ideal goals to be pursued and to the models of conduct that the group tended to instil in its members. We recognise here two dimensions of culture that reinforce one another: one descriptive and cognitive, the other prescriptive. Culture, moreover, as tradition, gathering experience within itself, becomes the repository of collective memory, to be handed on to the generations that follow.

The path of life is, of course, beset with difficulties, yet everyone can learn the way of being shared by the community to which they belong. The effort spent in drawing closer to it will have its due reward: social integration.

It becomes clear, then, that the winning of the legendary treasure, buried underground and guarded by serpents or dragons, souls or devils, corresponds in reality to the winning of the ‘true treasure’: the cultural values and norms that the community asks each of its members to make their own.

Bibliography

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Notes

[1] The legends referred to here are the faithful transcription and Italian translation of what I recorded, from the 1990s onwards, in various localities of Umbria, among popular informants. They come (except for three, published more than a hundred years ago by folklore enthusiasts) from my own research into the narrative of the oral tradition, a subject that had previously received only sporadic attention. Consider that not a single folktale from our region figures in Italo Calvino’s celebrated collection (1956): in his Introduction he states that for Umbria he found “nothing usable” (p. XXXVIII). And yet, as in the other regions, where research had already begun in the late nineteenth century, Umbria had a narrative heritage of its own, customarily handed down by word of mouth in the round of the peasant vigils, the usual setting for its performance (Cecchini, 1994). But the scarcity of research never brought it to light in its full substance, and so it remained closed off and jealously guarded within the tradition of the family and the village. The legends of hidden treasures shared the same fate, entrusted to the memory of those who carried them.

[2] But even when the memory of a treasure’s existence is alive, in the field one does not always manage to collect a text that narrates the precise event (Lavinio, 1997): those interviewed, in Umbria too, often reported only the kind of treasure and the place where, according to belief, it is said to be buried, while the legendary theme is not developed into the narrative form of the legend.

[3] It should be noted that, for the previously unpublished tales, the place and year of recording are given beside the title.

[4] The motif of the murder is the central act of the ritual for binding a guardian to the treasure. Giuseppe Pitrè, the founder of folklore studies in Italy, also reports this motif in the Sicilian legends (1889).

[5] A scrupulous researcher in the territory of Città di Castello, Giuseppe Nicasi documented, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the various aspects of the life and traditional culture of the peasants of the small community of Morra.

[6] This is the common conclusion of the treasure hunt. According to the rural communities in particular, the Devil, together with the witches, holds power over the forces of nature, controls atmospheric phenomena, and knows how to unleash storms and tempests (Cecchini, 1997, 2018; Cocchiara, 1945). These are the concrete and violent manifestations of that hostile, diabolical force bent on preventing the removal of the treasure.

[7] An illustrious man of letters, the Marquis Giovanni Eroli took a particular interest in the history of Narni, his native city.

[8] These legends are said to originate from the “archaic myth of the ‘monsters’, guardians of the tree of life, of a consecrated zone, of absolute values. Access is forbidden to the non-elect, and whoever wishes to attempt it must give proof of heroism or of wisdom” (Eliade, 1976, p. 458). Gold, the symbol of glory and immortality, becomes in the legends a buried treasure, an object of men’s cupidity. But the value it holds at the level of magico-religious experience undergoes a sharp degradation once it is transposed to the human level and enters common experience.

[9] A Perugian physician and demologist of the school of Paolo Mantegazza, Zanetti was interested above all in the popular medicine practised by women; but, at the end of the nineteenth century, he also gathered a number of legends in the countryside.

[10] The legends of hidden treasures, “tangles of frustrations and expectations”, give valuable indications about the popular psyche, as Glauco Sanga notes (1985, p. 51).

[11] According to the Church, one day the Devil will make use of all the hidden riches “to become lord of the world” (Graf, 1980, p. 89).

Clara Cecchini is a researcher and adjunct professor in the Faculty of Political Sciences in Perugia. She taught Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology until 2011. Her work centres chiefly on popular culture in Umbria. She has to her name a number of publications on the narrative of the oral tradition, drawn from her fieldwork.