Forty more legends from Gozo : stories of bygone times

Abstract

This is my second collection of legends from Gozo. The English and German editions of my first selection - FORTY LEGENDS FROM Gozo and VIERZIG LEGENDEN VON Gozo- were so well received that I decided to publish this sequel. In researching this second selection I realized that my love for history must have unconsciously been instilled in me by my father, who in my childhood recounted many a story reproduced below. As in the first collection, the legends are grouped under three sections: General Stories - including several aetiological narratives that purport to explain a cause such as the origin of place names, certain folk beliefs, and other local customs [l to 17]; Slavery stories - related especially to the period from the early thirteenth to the beginning of the eighteenth century when Barbary corsairs and other Mediterranean warriors landed on the island and abducted Gozitans to trade them on the prosperous slave market [18 to 22]; and Religious stories - those that cropped up from the religious belief of the folk and are mostly related to the shrines that dot the island [23 to 40]. The legends are here retold in English freely translated from the original Maltese narrative and each is preceded by a short introduction to help the foreign reader understand the story better. Several legends are being published here for the first time. The titles of the first collection of legends follow overleaf, while the list of sources of this second selection is on page seven. A legend is defined as an unauthenticated story preserved by tradition and popularly thought to be historical. It must be stated in conclusion that some of these legends do portray many a historical fact.