I Giorni della Merla
According to Italian legend, the last three days of January are the coldest in the year.
Looking out of the window first thing on Monday morning, the vineyard was covered in a hard frost. It looked very could have been a scene from a black and white film; the frozen ground set against the methodically placed, dark-coloured poles that keep the vines growing in straight line.
“Gosh, it’s icy out there today,” I say somewhat superfluously to my husband, who is already wearing thermals in anticipation of the day he’ll be spending outside pruning those aforementioned vines.
“These are the days of the blackbird,” he reminds me, only marginally more helpful than my comment to him.
Like most legends, the concept is rather whimsical… that a white bird should take shelter from the bitter cold in a chimney and appear three days later, on February 1st, covered in ash and therefore as a blackbird, or merla in Italian.
Just like most things in Italy, there’s also a variation depending on which region you’re in. On the radio yesterday morning, the commentators were explaining some of these differences - how many birds, why and where they were hiding, etc - but the one that made me chuckle was learning how in a part of Italy, those birds even have names: Pasquino, Nerea, and their three chicks: Verina, Podino e Sirino!
Whilst it might seem like a ridiculous fairytale - and you wouldn’t be far wrong! - it’s actually quite reassuring that to realise that these last three days have effectively been the coldest of the winter so far, and while the climate is changing before our very eyes, that this old piece of folklore still came true in 2023.
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