The Kingdom of Fanes ( lld, Rëgn de Fanes) is the
national epic of the
Ladin people
The Ladins are an ethnic group in northern Italy. They are distributed in several valleys, collectively known as Ladinia. These include the valleys of Badia and Gherdëina in South Tyrol, of Fassa in the Trentino, and Livinallongo (also known ...
in the
Dolomites
The Dolomites ( it, Dolomiti ; Ladin: ''Dolomites''; german: Dolomiten ; vec, Dołomiti : fur, Dolomitis), also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range located in northeastern Italy. They form pa ...
and the most important part of the
Ladin
Ladin may refer to:
* Ladin language, a language in northern Italy, often classified as a Rhaeto-Romance language
*Ladin people, the inhabitants of the Dolomite Alps region of northern Italy
See also
*Laden (disambiguation)
* Ladino (disambigua ...
literature. Originally an
epic cycle, today it is known through the work of
Karl Felix Wolff in 1932, gathered in his book ''Dolomitensagen''. Until that time, this material was transmitted orally among the Ladin people. This legend is part of the larger corpus of the
South Tyrolean sagas, whose protagonists are the Fanes themselves.
[ Giuliano e Marco Palmieri, ''I regni perduti dei monti pallidi'', Cierre Edizioni, 1996, Verona.]
Synopsis
Initially, the Fanes lived in peace and allied themselves with the peaceful
marmots. Some generations later, the queen decided to marry a foreign prince, who took control of the kingdom and replaced the marmot in the emblem of the Fanes with an eagle, allied himself with the eagles and prepared to wage war to expand the kingdom. He made his daughter Dolasilla a fierce fighter. Dolasilla received an impenetrable silver armour and unfailing arrows from the dwarves, after she helped them. The dwarves tell her she will be invincible until marriage and advise her not to enter the battlefield should the silver armour change colour. Under Dolasilla's command, invincible on the battlefield, the kingdom grows in size, until she meets a servant of the sorcerer Spina de Mul, the enemy warrior Ey de Net, and falls in love with him. Due to the dwarves' prophecy, the king opposes the marriage. Dolasilla and Ey de Net pledged not to fight ever again. Foreseeing the end of his kingdom, the king banishes Ey de Net and bargained his people and kingdom for the entrance to the legendary underground land of plenty, ''Aurona'' with the enemy kingdom of the southern people and flees. To defend her people. Dolasilla broke her oath and joined the battle, even though her armour is turning dark. She dies fighting, killed by her unfailing arrows, which Spina de Mul stole from her. The traitor king is turned into stone and the survivors of the Fanes find shelter with the marmots in the mountain, where they wait for the silver trumpets that will mark the rebirth of the kingdom.
The Kingdom of Fanes according to Wolff
Wolff's view
The preservation of such material about Ladin legends is due mainly to
Karl Felix Wolff, Austrian journalist and anthropologist. His passion for folklore and the oral traditions of the people of the Dolomites started during his stay in
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[ Karl Felix Wolff, ''L'Anima delle Dolomiti'', Bologna, Cappelli 1987, p. 252] Then Wolff dedicated his time to the purpose of gathering these oral traditions. He was convinced these stories were distinct and distant from the Romance and Germanic lore most stories in the Alps came from. The motifs of these stories led him to think they came from more ancient times, due to the presence of
totemism
A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or '' doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system.
While ''the w ...
, the
anthropomorphisms for the sun, the moon and
death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
and an underlying conflict between
patriarchal and
matrilinear
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance o ...
societies.
[ Ulrike Kindl, ''Kritische Lektüre der Dolomitensagen von Karl Felix Wolff'', Bd. II.] The reconstruction of the epic cycle took a long time, between 1907 and 1932.
Wolff's errors
Since the material was very fragmented, Wolff stated he had to make additions some rework so to produce a complete text. However, he was not very precise at stating which parts of his work were his own.
Ulrike Kindl, germanologist at the
University of Venice
Ca' Foscari University of Venice ( it, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, simply Università Ca' Foscari) is a public university in Venice, Italy. Since its foundation in 1868, it has been housed in the Venetian Gothic palace of Ca' Foscari, from ...
, analysed Wolff's method and the sagas extensively, in order to backtrack to the original material. According to her work, Wolff's book could be separated in three different parts, initially independent: a corpus of stories from the
Val Badia
The Val Badia ( en, Badia Valley, Ladin: ''Val Badia''; it, Val Badia; german: Gadertal) is the valley of the Gran Ega river in South Tyrol, Italy. It stretches from the Sella massif northwards to the Puster Valley. The villages in the Val Badia ...
and
Cortina d'Ampezzo revolving around the character of Dolasilla and the Fanes, a
Fodom
Livinallongo del Col di Lana (; lld, Fodóm; german: Buchenstein) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Belluno in the Italian region Veneto, located about north of Venice and about northwest of Belluno.
Ninety percent of the ...
one about Aurona, the underground land of plenty, and Lidsanel's saga from
Fassa Valley
The Fassa Valley (Ladin: ''Fascia'', it, Val di Fassa, german: Fassatal) is a valley in the Dolomites in Trentino, northern Italy. As an administrative valley community (Italian: ''Comunità di valle'', German: ''Talgemeinschaft'') of Trentino, ...
.
Mentioned places and underlying events
The dating of the cycle is uncertain, likely from a pre-Roman period. Some themes suggested Wolff, Kindl and various scholars that the original story may date back to the end of the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
, around 900 BCE.
Following such dating, if the story were to be somewhat based on historical events, the southern people the Fanes are at war with might be, then, the
Palaeo-Venetics.
Initially such dating was supposed implausible, as it was believed that humans did not populate the dolomitic valleys until Roman times, but such hypothesis was proved wrong by various archaeological discoveries, like the
mesolithic burial in Mondeval (
San Vito di Cadore).
The events take place mostly on the
Fanes plateau. Some of the mentioned places are
Plan de Corones,
lake Braies, the
Averau, the
Falzarego Pass.
Legacy
When Wolff started to gather these oral stories, the available material was scarce and almost forgotten. However his work stimulated a rebirth in the interest towards this legend and Alpine folklore in general. After Wolff, many other versions of these stories followed, like those of Staudacher and or the re-elaborated version of Brunamaria Dal Lago. In 2005, from the idea of Susy Rottonara, Roland Verra and Hans-Peter Karbon produced a film about the saga produced, titled “''Le Rëgn de Fanes''”, which won ''Best International Score'' prize at
Garden State Film Festival
The Garden State Film Festival is a film festival in the United States held in Asbury Park, New Jersey which debuts more than 200 independent films annually over four days each spring.
The festival was founded in 2002 in Sea Girt, New Jersey by ...
in 2008.
The legacy of the legend could also be found in the various shops, hotels and commercial activities named after the characters or the events of the story.
Note
Sources
* Bruna Dal Lago Veneri, ''Storie di magia. Errabonda cultura lunare fra le custodi del tempo promesso nelle valli ladine'', con una prefazione di Luigi Granetto, Lato Side, 1979.
* Giuliano Palmieri e Marco Palmieri, ''I regni perduti dei monti pallidi''. Cierre Edizioni, 1996 Verona.
* Ulrike Kindl, ''Kritische Lektüre der Dolomitensagen von Karl Felix Wolff'', Bd. I. Istitut Ladin Micura de Rü, 1983, San Martin de Tor.
* Ulrike Kindl, ''Kritische Lektüre der Dolomitensagen von Karl Felix Wolff'', Bd. II. Istitut Ladin Micura de Rü, 1983, San Martin de Tor.
* Karl Felix Wolff, ''Dolomitensagen'', Selbstverlag, 1913, Bolzano.
* Karl Felix Wolff, ''Il regno dei Fanes'', Cappelli, 1951, Bologna.
* Karl Staudacher, ''Das Fanneslied'', Ed. Tyrolia, 1994 (1937), Innsbruck.
* Angel Morlang, ''Fanes da Zacan'', Istitut ladin Micurá de Rü, 1978, San Martin de Tor.
* Bruna Dal Lago Veneri, Elmar Locher, ''Leggende e racconti del Trentino-Alto Adige: vagabonde fantasie, miti e incantesimi erranti tra valli, boschi e castelli misteriosi; un intreccio affascinante e sorprendente di storie a cavallo tra due culture di antichissima tradizione'', Roma: Newton Compton, 1983.
* Bruna Dal Lago Veneri, ''Il regno dei Fanes'', Giunti 2008
See also
*
Parco naturale Fanes - Sennes e Braies
External links
*
* {{Cite web, url=http://www.fanesfiction.com, title=The film "''Le Rëgn de Fanes''" website
Ladin language
Italian literature
Dolomites
South Tyrol