Mount Triona

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🎧 STAGE 9 – THE ASCENT TO MOUNT TRIONA: BETWEEN PANORAMA AND MYTH

Climbing to the summit of Mount Triona, one realizes that one is in the heart of Sicily. This is not an exaggeration: the geographical location of this relief, in the center of the region, makes it a privileged vantage point. On a clear day, the view sweeps from the Madonie Mountains to the southern coastline, and at times it seems as if one can embrace the entire island at a glance. This geographical centrality has also been symbolic over the centuries, a meeting place between heaven and earth, between the concrete life of farmers and the sacred dimension of folk tales.

And it is here, in this natural environment enveloped in silence and ancient breezes, that the mythical narratives of Sicilian oral tradition, collected and documented by Giuseppe Pitrè, are grafted. One of the most evocative stories tells of a young farmer who, thanks to a blessing he received during a ritual in the fields, turned into an animal to fight an evil creature ravaging the crops.

The tale, steeped in natural and symbolic elements, tells us of wind in the ears of corn, moonlight and silences laden with anticipation: images that evoke the landscape of Triona, transforming it into an epic setting.

Other legends tell of streams that, on full moon nights, turn into paths of light, guided by protective spirits to safety. These narratives, true “symbolic maps,” handed down in the “cunti” of the elders, transform the environment into an actor in the story: woods, rocks and valleys are not mere elements of the landscape, but witnesses and custodians of ancient wisdom.

Climbing Mount Triona, then, is more than a hike: it is a pilgrimage into the deep memory of Sicily, between the visible and the invisible, where every stone and every flower can still whisper to us forgotten stories and truths guarded in time