The Emperor's Ears

The legends of the Vitalba valley tell that Frederick I Barbarossa, in old age, retired to the castle of Lagopesole, afflicted with a congenital deformity that forced him to hide elongated and pointed ears under flowing hair. So that nothing would leak out of this embarrassing situation, the barbers called to his abode and charged with shaving him, upon leaving the castle ran into a special and deadly trap set up in a tower at the end of a long corridor. Tradition, though without reporting his name, relates that a young barber, perhaps less clueless than the others, managed to escape the deadly ambush, and to have his life saved on the condition that he would not breathe a word of what he knew about the emperor's deformity. The promise was kept .... in part: the barber cared about his skin, perhaps even kept his word, but he sought an outlet for that extraordinary secret. He found it in a secluded spot in the Lagopesole countryside, digging a deep hole in the ground, and shouting at the top of his lungs the story that no one was to know. After some time, in that place, reeds grew that, stirred by the wind, sent the emperor's secret back to the four corners of the earth like a song: "Federico Barbarossa tène l'orecchie all'asinà a a a a ..."! Strange to say, but it is a famous refrain taken up in many folk songs of this area...... Those who do not believe the stories blown in the wind can always be content to observe the shelf in the form of a male head carved on the donjon of the castle above its entrance: it is a crowned head, with two large pointed ears in plain view, in which tradition once again recognizes the grandfather of Frederick II, even establishing for that unflattering attribute a parallel with King Midas.