Mount Bad Luck: God's punishment or ecological disaster?

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2 years ago

The mountain of bad luck, Monte Disgrazia, does indeed exist and is located in the Italian Alps in the Sondrio region. And once it really was called Lace, and a beautiful one - Pizzo Bello. The origin of the current, as if from the pen of Dante, infernal name is shrouded in legend, as the mountain itself at times - clouds:

IG kdallasteppa

Can we solve together the mysterious toponymy?
Speaking of clouds: Italians believe that when the top of a mountain is crowned with a cap of clouds, it will rain. This local belief knows no regional boundaries, being widespread throughout Italy: here almost everywhere, in every region, there is "its" weather mountain, by which local old-timers guess the weather much more successfully than the weather center, just by looking whether it "puts on a hat", si mette il cappello, or not.

But back to our Unlucky. She's good, "devil girl," isn't she?

IG sabry.chic

According to one version, we owe the infernal name of the mountain to... The name of the mountain, we owe to the illiteracy of the interpreters, who translated it from the local dialect into Italian: it so happened that the local word "desgiascià", which means melting ice, was consonant with the Italian "disgrazie", "bad luck". I remember at the university we used to call such words "false friends of the interpreter"... 

According to another version, once upon a time long ago this mountain was called Pizzo Bello, Beautiful Lace. And the mountain itself was beautiful and green, completely covered with green meadows, flowering fields and picturesque forests, full of all kinds of animals. But one day God, angry about human cruelty to nature, decided to punish people and... started a terrible fire. The terrible fire ate the green pastures, forests and fields, and the mountain itself began to crumble, becoming virtually inaccessible.

The story is a lie (but is it a lie?!), but there is a hint in it! People, be people, because there is nature all around! Otherwise it will be bad: folklore and Greenpeace warn!
The more so that Mount Bad luck is not the only place with a spooky name in the fertile and picturesque valley Valmalenco. There is no need to look far for examples: the name of this plain, according to one version, once sounded as Val Malenga, valle del male, the Plain of Evil, because it is surrounded on all sides by impassable mountains.

However, let's not be dramatic: the terrible outside and good inside is a wonderful plain with a terrible name, popularly called "Magnifica", "La Magnifica". The mountain of sticks", "la val di bachétt" and "the mountain of stones", "la val di sass", after the name of the main expositions.

Which legend and which title did you like best?

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2 years ago

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Honestly my friend, I love Italy it's one of my bucketlist and I love looking mountains my friend. In our province there are a lot of mountains. I love looking at it.

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