December
24th, 2009
Dear
Friends,
You
sure have noticed that I didn’t update this site for one
year and a half, and maybe you have doubted if I would update
it any more. Well, I really hope being able to do that again
regularly.
Last year I have been in some trouble, first of all because
I moved and I had a hard time… building, completing and
furnishing my new home. I am not over yet, but now I should
be able to devote a share of my time to my hobbies of old. More,
I got some health problems, which I didn’t like at all
and, were it not enough, I experienced not one, but two hard
disk crashes. What suffered most was my e-mail, so that I can’t
be sure having received all messages that were sent to me, or
having successfully delivered an answer to all those I did receive.
Therefore, in case some of you had his messages unanswered,
I kindly ask him to try again. The situation should be fixed
now, and I will do my best to give an answer quickly. With all
my apologies.
This
time, I’m updating the site just by archiving the news
of 2008 and adding this page as the only update of 2009. Anyway,
the time lapsed was not uneventful, and I’m listing here
some news. I hope to be able inserting them into the site in
a more convenient fashion next time.
-
I carried on – slowly – my translation of Wolff’s
Forewords, that never appeared in Italian (or
English, as far as I know) to the Kingdom of Fanes saga in his
Dolomitensagen;
- Dr. Benno Baumgarten’s courtesy, the deputy director
of the Museum of Natural History of Bolzano, I could eventually
read Georg Innerebner’s original report,
published on Der Schlern, about his more or less archaeological
findings at the Alpe di Fanes Grande;
- I was happily surprised by getting in touch with Klara
French-Wieser, who now lives in Australia; in the ‘70s
she wrote about totemism and matriarchate in the Fanes saga;
- Susy Rottonara informs that the Lia Fanes
has successfully staged a new literary-musical piece: “Fanes
– the musical poem of the Dolomites”, on the
poetical text by Roland Verra and musics written by Susy Rottonara
herself;
- Laura Mangus – a Ladin woman who now
lives in Colorado – communicates that a book has been
published (Toth- Brunner, 2007: Raetic – an extinct
semitic language in Central Europe) maintaining that the
Raetic language is related to middle-Akkadian. I wouldn’t
care, were it not for the fact that genetists have ascertained
that Ladins’ DNA is similar to that of some Middle-Eastern
populations;
- Several fans have provided me with further details about the
TV movie “The glass mountains”
that appeared on Italian TV in the ‘70s;
- Manuela Vidale signals a legend from the
Val Rendena, published at the end of the XIX century, where
a demon, named Schena-de-Mul (Mule’s Back), behaves
like a Ladinian ogre –indicating that this part of the
legend was more widely diffused than I supposed;
- I got in touch with Alberto Agostinelli,
who authored a charming book about the history of Rocca Pietore,
the village where he was born (see Bibliography). He
handed me a book of legends from this area. I’m comparing
them with other Ladin legends; there are several interesting
affinities, and also a few diverging motives.
I
take the chance to wish all of you a merry Christmas and a legendary
new year!
