Usually, this happened during winter when the whole family would gather around the fireplace after dinner (hence the name, “fireplace tales”). This spot emanated light and warmth, a stark contrast to the rest of the cold household, enveloped by the shadows cast by candles and stearic lamps. This contrast created a particular and fascinating atmosphere, conducive to the narration of all kinds of stories and tales, which served well to pass the hours pleasantly in a time when modern distractions like television, computers, and the like didn’t exist.
But it wasn’t only the long winter nights that served as an effective backdrop for the narration of such tales (although it was the most evocative, so much so that it gave rise to the name). These stories were also re-proposed during many other times of the year, particularly during the muggy summer nights when several families would emerge from their homes to enjoy the night coolness, often forming substantial groups along streets barely lit by starlight or moonlight.
As a child, I was fortunate enough to experience, even if briefly, the atmosphere created in these situations, especially during stays in a rural village a few kilometers from my hometown, a distinctive and unique place, like many others in Sardinia.
The “contos de forredda” (fireplace tales) didn’t all share the same peculiarities, even though they tend to be grouped into a single category. Some were totally invented fables, others referred to ancient legends, and still others—those that inspired me for this collection of stories—were presented as real-life events whose protagonists were, if not the narrators themselves, then people from the village, who had experienced particular situations that left indelible marks on people’s memories. In short, these are typical experiences with, at least seemingly, supernatural implications, about which judgment is still divided between those who consider them products of imagination, or at most, purely coincidental circumstances, and those who genuinely believe in them.
Such experiences are still talked about today, by many who claim to have lived them sometimes in their lives. What happened in the past, however, was that these types of stories, thanks to the great skill of the narrators and the atmosphere in which they were told, acquired that typical gothic story feel of the late nineteenth century that reminded me of the typical plots of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, but in this case, set against the archaic and rural tradition of the island.
And in writing these stories, I sought to recreate precisely the atmosphere and the hard, archaic rural life of those past times, blending all of this with the sinister plots of the events that serve as the common thread throughout the work.
The name of the collection is the same with which these stories are often remembered today with a bit of nostalgia: “Contusu Antigusu“! Stories from a distant past!
Through these tales, I’ve tried to highlight an aspect that has usually not been well emphasized in the many descriptions and accounts referring to the life and society of past Sardinian times, often described through the hard work of the countryside. That is, the magical and enchanted aspect of the life and world of our grandparents, for whom the supernatural and the real seemed to have no well-defined boundaries.
I’ll give the example I used during the presentation in my town (Cabras). An elderly aunt of mine once gave me tips on how I should behave if I encountered a ghost in the countryside that, by showing me gold objects, invited me to approach it. “First of all, always try to keep a blessed handkerchief in your pocket,” she told me, “then throw it at him, you’ll see he’ll disappear. Then approach and set fire to the handkerchief without touching it. Then dig under that spot, and you’ll find something precious there.”
The surprising thing was hearing her give instructions on how to behave in case of a “ghost appearance,” and she did it as if she were saying the most natural thing in the world, as if today a doctor were warning you about how to behave if a wasp stings you! In her world, ghosts (along with a whole other sample of supernatural situations) were components as real and tangible as wasps. And she talked about them as if she were talking about the most obvious thing in the world.
But again, it wasn’t just her. As a child, I was lucky enough to be immersed in a world where everyone had no doubts about the real consistency of those supernatural phenomena which, in their imagination, nevertheless belonged to daily life. And through their stories and their beliefs, that world on the border between the material and the transcendental seemed to take on a real consistency in the eyes of a child. This was, in my opinion, a very important aspect of the world our grandparents lived in, a world that was already close to disappearing when I was born, but which I could at least perceive through them.
A world that I still remember with great nostalgia and affection, and which I have tried to describe through these tales.
Mauro Mura
