Legend of the Castle of the Slaves
The legend tells the story of Castle of the slaves of Fiumefreddo and the origin of the two Moorish statues that scan the sea.
Legend has it that in 1700 a skilled Palermo doctor, Gaetano Palmieri, saved the son of the Prince of Palagonia, Gravina-Crujllas, from an illness. The Prince out of gratitude gave the doctor a plot of his fiefdom located near the Fiumefreddo river. Palmieri wanted to build a fortified villa to live in it for long periods of the year, also because that place was very popular with his beautiful wife Rosalia. Rosalia's beauty soon struck the heart of a knight from Taormina named Nello Corvaya.
It happened one day that a boat of Turkish pirates landed on the beach of Marina di Cottone, who began to plunder the territory and, having reached the castle, kidnapped the two owners. While the Turkish pirates were about to reach the beach to escape they were joined by some soldiers led by the knight Corvaja. The pirates were thus killed or were put to flight and the Palmieri freed. The legend tells that, during these events, a Muslim couple, Shamira and Mustafà, remained prisoner in the turret placed above the Castle. To commemorate this event, the owners built a loggia where they placed two statues of Moors who sadly scan the sea as if waiting for someone to come back to free them. Madonna of the Sacred Letter.
The name of the Castle derives from this episode, the “Castle of the Slaves”.
