The Legend of Dead Man

Between Pania della Croce and Pania Secca there is the profile of a sleeping giant. All know it is the dead man and it is easily recognizable both from Versilia or Garfagnana, and from the inferior valley of Serchio. It is told, that many many years ago, the Pania della Croca wasn't united with the Pannia Secca and between the two peaks extended vast prairies where the shepherds every summer lead their flocks to graze. Along time again, a shepherd and a shepherdess met on those prairies with their sheep and spent many afternoons together to made garlands of flowers, to watch the far-away sea, to reveal their dreams. Between the two young ones, love grew, but at the end of the summer, the young shepherd began to spend more and more time watching the sea. He thought of the ships that traveled the sea from Pisa, a Marine Republic, centre of commercial traffic and richness. The girl began to worry about him; she asked him many questions and gave him every type of attention, but the shepherd remained mysteriously silent. One day, when the first clouds of the end of summer presented themselves threateningly on the horizon, announcing to the shepherds that it was time to go back down to their own houses, the young shepherd called his faithful friend and confided to her that he desired to abandon the mountains and become a sailor to get to know new places and people. Thus one day he departed for the sea. The young shepherdess remained alone on the wild mountain without losing hope, not even for a moment, that one day her love would return on the mountains. Months passed; the summer came on the pastures with its flowers, blue skies, and vaporous white clouds, tall as enchanting castles. The shepherdess spend long hours fixed watching the sea, praying to God that her lost love return. She didn't speak to anyone, excluded herself from the company of others and didn't find comfort in anything, if not watching the sea. She realized, in the meantime, that a young boy that climbed on the pastures of the Pania for the first time tat summer. He remained charmed by the beauty of the young shepherdess whose sadness made her even more attractive. He had tried every way to talk to the girl, but she escaped his presence without a word. But one day the new shepherd confided his sincere and profound love that he had for her and tried to understand the reason for her sadness, inviting her to confide her suffering. The shepherdess recounted the story of the unfortunate love and how she couldn't return the affectionate gestures and kind words of the new shepherd that, all summer long, had tried in every way to make her forget the past. All of his efforts were futile; then one day the young shepherd understood that which would liberate the young shepherdess from the torment of the past. He decided to climb to the peak of Pania della Croce and ask God that a suggestion to make the girl forget about her love. God revealed that only way, would be to inhibit the girl from visiting the sea, but to have him sacrifice himself, extending to the land and leaving that his vault be transformed into that of a giant of stone that unite the two Panias, hiding the view to the sea. The young shepherd for love of the girl accepted, and from that day, his face was impressed between the mountains and remembered as the dead man.