True Stories
True, strange stories from around the world, with their sources, read through the Smorfia.
- in Naples · from the 1600s to the end of the 1800s'O Gran Cabalista and the assistito: when every dream in Naples became a numberIn 19th-century Naples some people turned dreams and signs into lotto numbers, and others swore the spirits handed the numbers to them. Matilde Serao saw them up close, and she also told of the price families paid. A story of customs, of breathless Saturdays and of dreams that deserved better.Read the story
- in Naples, in the historic center · from the seventeenth century to todayWhy in Naples a hunchbacked man brings luck (and a hunchbacked woman doesn’t): the story of the ScartellatoIn Naples a hunchbacked man brings luck and, by tradition, a hunchbacked woman doesn’t. From the basket that gives the Scartellato his name to Basile’s fairy tales, from kings afraid of the jettatori, the bringers of the evil eye, to the little top-hatted hunchback of San Gregorio Armeno: the story of a good-luck charm, told with its less kind side too.Read the story
- in Benevento and the Sannio · from the seventh century to todayA broom behind the door and a walnut tree by the river: the long night of 'a JanaraIn the Sannio, for centuries, people kept a broom behind the door against the janara, the witch who slipped by like a breath of air and flew to the walnut tree of Benevento. Behind the legend are the Lombards, a bishop who cuts down a tree, a rhyme that caught on and the trial records of real women.Read the story
- across Sicily, Molise and Puglia · from the 1700s to today’s talesWhen a shadow sits on your chest and steals your breath: in southern Italy they called it MalombraFrom Sicily to Molise and Puglia it changes shape, but it always comes at night: it’s the Malombra, the name folklore gave to an evil shadow and to a very human fear.Read the story
- in Naples, inside people’s homes · from the 1600s to todayIn Naples some people come home and say good evening to an empty house: it’s for the Bella 'MbrianaIn Naples some people, coming home at night, greet an empty house: “Bonasera, bella 'Mbriana.” Who is the kindly spirit of the home, who shows herself as a gecko and takes offense if you talk about moving? From a word already found in the 1600s to the princess of legend, all the way to Pino Daniele.Read the story
- in the old houses of Naples · from the legend’s fifteenth century to todayHe moves your keys, leaves coins, and woe to anyone who tells: the story of 'O MunacielloIn Naples, when something disappears and turns up where nobody put it, everyone knows who’s to blame. Matilde Serao gave him a birth date, 1445; Eduardo De Filippo brought him to the stage and Sorrentino to the movies. The true history, and the tales, of the little monk of Neapolitan homes.Read the story
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