Colapesce

The man who was half fish, half human

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Once upon a time, there was a boy named Nicola, better known as Cola. He was the youngest son of a large family of fishermen, who lived in Messina. Cola loved fish and the sea, he liked to dive even in depth to discover all the secrets that hidden in the seabed. 

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He loved it so much that he spent more time in the water than on land. However his mother was not very happy about this passion and one day in despair she placed a curse on him saying "May you become like a fish!" Just then an angel passed by and Cola became half man and half fish. Cola never returned home and remained forever in the sea. Shortly after, his mother died of a broken heart because she never saw her son again.

Cola became famous throughout Sicily for his swimming skills and word even reached the court of King Frederick.
The king wanted to meet him and thus came to Messina, together with the queen and their daughter, the princess.

The king told him he wanted to test his skills by inviting him to retrieve a gold cup he had thrown into the sea.
Colapesce immediately dived into the sea and recovered the precious object.
The king rewarded him, but immediately put him to the test again. This time he threw a crown into the sea where the water was very deep.

While Colapesce was looking for it he noticed that the Island of Sicily rested on three columns. Two were intact while the third was full of cracks and marked by time. From that day Colapesce never came up from the depths of the sea.

The king and queen waited in vain for Colapesce at the seafront for days until they heard his voice coming from the sea. Colapesce said he could no longer return because he had to remain in the depths of the sea to support (as he still does!) that badly combined column, so that his beloved land would not collapse.

Every now and then the Sicilian land trembles a little because Colapesce gets tired supporting the weight of the column on one shoulder so he changes to the other!