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Cuento y leyenda de Periana

Diputación de Málaga
Portada Guía de cuentos y leyendas de la Axarquía.ESP

Cuento y leyenda de Periana

Zip Code 29710
Chronicles and Legends (si se trata de historia)

The origin of the name is somewhere between history and legend. The story goes that there two families were litigating as they each wanted their surname – one was Pereiro and the other was Santana- to be used for the name of the town. As the quarrels became more serious, it was decided that neither one nor the other should be used, but a mixture of both, and hence the name Periana. Nonetheless, there are those who claim that the ending in “ana” is a late Roman place name meaning town or farm..

  • Name of its inhabitants:

Perianeses.

  • Legend:

There is a legend about an imprisoned Christian woman, whose cries were heard purely by chance by a Muslim who was walking around the walls of the mosque, near which was the room where the beautiful Christian had been imprisoned. Since the moment when they first looked at each other across the ditch which separated them they fell in love; they would subsequently use the cover of dark for their secret meetings.

Ahmed’s family, who discovered their son’s relationship, decided that the prisoner, Sara, should be sent away to put an end to this. When Ahmed heard of this plan, could not see another way out than to flee. Early one morning, before the father’s plan could be put in place, the lovers fled but they were mercilessly hunted down and rather than see themselves captured, they sealed their love  in perpetuity by throwing themselves from the hill of Marchamonas, where their bodies fell into the void but their souls flew freely to the land of eternal love. The locals claim that during winter nights when the wind blows strongest, you can hear murmurs of love in the air, showing that they are still in love.

There are other legends about a holm oak situated in the outskirts of the town, on the road to Riogordo. People say that this holm oak had supernatural powers when, after midnight, strange things would happen to anyone who walked nearby. Some said that the holm oak was bewitched and others blamed the events on a book of witchcraft that was bound using the bark of a tree, which a local witch used as she pleased. Be that as it may, the strange events ceased when the book disappeared, something that nobody can find an explanation for.

 

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