Entella Cave legend
There are several legends that popular tradition handed down on the cave of the Rocca di Entella.
A first legend tells of a truvatura. The Entella cave is in fact also known with the name "Grotta dei Dinari" because, according to popular tradition, it is the guardian of an immense treasure protected by a spell that would prevent anyone from taking it. A second legend tells that the cave is was inhabited by a fourteen-headed snake-monster. It is said that to appease his anger against the locals, he had to be offered as a meal, every day, a girl drawn by lot.
A third legend tells of the beautiful woman dressed in white who saw some peasants who had ventured into the meanders of the cave to look for the mythical treasure. The beautiful woman told them she was a Muslim queen who had long inhabited those places and then disappeared. The peasants, dazzled by the vision, could not find the way out. So it was that the woman who took them out appeared again. Historically, the figure of the young Muslim princess is identified with the daughter of the caliph Ibn Abbàd, who preferred to die in order not to surrender to the emperor Frederick, and whose figure is linked to the legend of the fortress of Entella.
