Fire Place: heritage and folktales

Since the beginning  of time, word of mouth, and storytelling has been the best tool to reach out and pass our heritage and folktales to future generations.

It was a simpler time, back when houses didn’t have TVs, computers, smart phones, and heaters,  families of the region (Valdichiana) passed winter nights awake, grouping around a fireplace that occupied the majority of the kitchen to tell stories, a few true, and others  were legends. For years scraps of popular local culture were transferred around a fire pit through song.

In this intimate environment  stories were gathered, gathered through family and friend, each adding their own wit, humor, and games gathered through life. Entire families would go around the farms to gather people around the fire; city to city, boys and girls would wait late into the night to meet each other. It was a time to meet, have fun, but also of confidence and solidarity.

Today the evidence of this time is even more rare. The heritage and memories that they had is endanger of disappearing forever, because no one has continued this tradition.

With this proposition we leave you with a thought:

“we have not always been connected; this has given us a way to exercise our imagination.

We didn’t have Wikipedia; this gave us a better memory.

We were not prisoners  of the internet like hamsters in a wheel, and this taught us to savor time, even in boredom

.  –“ Metti via quell cellular (put away that phone)” di Aldo Cazzullo.