Back in the day, in Nunziata, a small village at the foot of Etna, a shepherd named Mascali and Rosemarine, the nymph of the stream, were in love. That was the sad time when war broke out between the Trojans and the Greeks. The gods flocked in large numbers to Hephaestus’s forge, which was overloaded with work, to provide their proteges, especially Achilles, with extraordinary weapons.
Thus the god emerged more and more often from the infernal depths of Etna, to rest a little. It was in this way that he met Rosemarine and began to rise to the surface more and more often to be with her. Hephaestus offered her his love, over and over again, but the nymph refused, being in love with the shepherd. One day Hephaestus, blinded by jealousy at the sight of the two tenderly embraced lovers, triggered a terrible eruption that buried them.
Today, in their memory, on the slopes of Etna there is a city that bears the name of the young shepherd: Mascali, and in the hamlet Nunziata, not far away, a street dedicated to the nymph. In 1928 another eruption destroyed Mascali. This time the only thing left was a palm tree that remained tall and proud to soar in the skies. The inhabitants say that Hephaestus this time wanted to be forgiven and did not bury Rosemarine.
