The Cercopes, the monkeys of the island

Another legend tells of when the island was infested by the Cercopes. The Cercopes were wicked thieves who plundered all who landed there. The wrath of Zeus also came here and sent his sailors to liberate the island, slaughtering the Cercopes and turning them into monkeys.

Since then, all those who landed on the island heard the screams of monkeys and believing it was inhabited by Piteco, a prehistoric monkey, they called it Pithecusa.

The Magician’s Cave and the mermaids

In the south-east side of the island, among the high rocky walls, we find a small cave, a precious refuge during coastal storms. Fishermen often stopped in the cave and told about the appearance of an old man with a good-natured aspect, white beard and flowing hair, sitting on the rock. They were attributed to the mysterious spirit the power to make the sea incredibly rich in fish but also to help fishermen, that’s why he was called the Magician.

In the cave were also young and beautiful girls with mysterious voices that cheered the waiting of men, perhaps the mysterious mermaids.

The legend of the Chiesa del Soccorso crucifix

Legend tells that a wooden sculpture, the crucifix, was found at sea by a group of sailors heading to Sardinia, stranded in Ischia by a storm. Arriving on the island, they decided to secure the crucifix in the Chiesa del Soccorso, then a convent, to go back and get it when they could have left again. Curiously, the sailors were no longer able to bring the crucifix outside because every time they tried, the entrance to the convent disappeared before their eyes, so they decided to leave it in Ischia. Immediately began the practices of devotion to the crucifix “who came from the sea.”

Many religious tales identify the shores, the rocks, the promontories, as meeting places between the living and the dead.

In the Island beliefs the beaches, on the night before the feast of St. Giovanni, are crossed by the janare, witches capable of ruining life with magical rites, spells and evil eye, from which you can defend yourself with handfuls of sand. It is said that a man covered up his donkey on the Maronti beach in Barano, hoping to cure him from the pains that afflicted him but when he went to free him, of the poor animal only the head remained, with a muzzle in a mocking smile. Story goes that the body was swallowed by the powerful underwater forces, the same ones that returned the Crucifix.

Sybil’s Cave in Ischia

Another legend indicates the caves of Ischia as dwelling of the Sibyl, who in summer went to Ischia, attracted by the waters with wonderful properties. Persecuted by the tyrant Aristodemus, she would have taken refuge at the Castiglione, like many families who had rebelled against the master of Cuma and his barbaric methods of government. Only after his death, the Sibyl return free to her abode. Tradition tells that in the cave near Castiglione the Sibyl would have announced the coming of Christ the Redeemer.

The sacred waters of Nitrodi

It is said that the women of Ischia are beautiful but those of Barano even more and that they owe their beauty to the waters of Nitrodi. These waters originated from the punishment of a nymph, when her skin, hair and beautiful limbs were dissolved like water, the water of Nitrodi.

During the pestilence the Sibyl heard from the Oracle a prophecy, “the salvation you seek will come only from the nymph” and took advantage of it by presenting herself as the savior but only after receiving votive gifts at the altars consecrated to her. The nymph stole niter and sulfur to mix with the healthy waters to accomplish her misdeed but was discovered and lost consciousness. Her body became a stone and as punishment for the theft, it was turned into a source, since then called Nitrodi water, from the smell of the niter she had stolen.

Ischia, the Land of the Feaci

It is said that Ischia is just the legendary Land of Feaci. Ulysses, arrived here exhausted, plunged into the warm waters of Gurgitiello to recover his strength and met the beautiful Nausicaa.

The Feaci were a people of navigators of the Greek mythology. In the Odyssey, a famous work, Homer tells of how they welcomed Ulysses and gave him the ship with which to return to his homeland, knowing to instigate the wrath of Poseidon, the god of the sea.

The demigod that gives life to the waters of Bagnitiello

Acmeno, demigod born to the nymph Euplea, lived in human form on the island of Ischia. One day, jumping from one bank to the other of a stream fell into the middle of the waters. No one heard his cries for help, and his prayers to the gods were also in vain. Zeus, however, moved by mercy, did not abandon him and told him “you will flow with healthy waters that will relieve the diseases and joy will bring”, so the limbs of the young dissolved and continued to live in the waters of the island of Ischia, in the waters of Bagnitiello.

What are you waiting for to visit the island of Ischia to relive these fascinating legends?