Chatting and telling, or talking while telling, was a ritual around the fireplace on winter nights, with the family gathered and wrapped in a single blanket of affection; or in the evening, when in the neighborhoods the people who lived in close contact gathered in the small spaces between the houses to be together. Then, in the streets illuminated by a dim light, you listened to the older ones, who spoke, “allegànta”, of the past that you didn’t find in elementary school books and that you would never have read in high school textbooks.
Stories of war and bandits, of work and exile, of hidden treasure and daily hunger. The chats of the time, “is contus a calori ‘e fogu” or “is allegas a su friscu” had the power to testify and transmit to the youngest a common culture, which was the identity of the people. One learned by listening.
