The mystery of kingdom Italland

Part 1 (Poland – Różyca)

Once upon a time in the beautiful country Italland there was a kingdom. The king was a very good man. His name was Mark and he was famous for his justice and  being generous for his lieges. All the people living in his country felt saved and happy because their country was rich, their fields were full of crops, tress full of fruit and  the whole kingdom was a wonderful place to live in. All of inhabitants were really glad to live in Italland … apart from their lord… He was sad  all the time because his beloved wife – Gulia died twenty years ago giving a birth to their child.  He has an only daughter whose name was Lily. Lily was the most beautiful girl who was seen in the world. Her big blue eyes were sparkling like diamonds and her red full lips looked like roses in the summer. But the biggest problem connected with king’s daughter was that she has never spoken a word in her life. She learnt how to read,  she knew how to ride a horse, could play the guitar she understood everything and was very wise, gentle and honest person but she was simply a dummy. King Mark asked all the doctors in his kingdom and from the neighbour countries to help the princess but it didn’t work. She could not say a word.  The king was asking himself why all these unfortunate accidents happen to him. But he could not find the answer.

King Mark and his beautiful daughter loved each other a lot. Even if the king looking into her beautiful eyes saw his died wife – Lily took after her mum very much -  he enjoyed spending time with the princess. He was really worried of his kingdom because no one wanted to marry a mute and he was afraid he will never have a son-in –law or a grandson who will rule in Italland.

One day he decided to go hunting. He woke up early and left his castle writing only a message to his daughter that he will come back in a few days. He was riding a long way on his horse called Rufus. It is getting darker he felt he is really tired so he decided to rest. He noticed a small cottage in the middle of the forest. He was dressed like a normal man so no one could recognize a king in his character. The door opened slowly and suddenly he saw a beautiful girl with a face and body identical with his only daughter  Lily, but dressed like a typical peasant woman.

• Lily! What are you doing in this old rural cottage? – asked the king.
• Good evening. My name is Gulia and I live here for twenty years. But who is Lily? –  said a peasant girl.
• Lily is my only daughter and has the same hair, face and body like you, so who are you? – Mark wanted to know.
• I am an orphan. My mother  Maria died  two years ago. I live here with my older brother Philip – answered a girl.

The king was shocked but he asked if he could come and rest after his long trip. He couldn’t understand how it is possible that this girl – completely identical with his daughter -  could live in his kingdom and he knew nothing about it. He decided to spend the night at the girls’s house and think about everything next day.

            When he woke up, it was the late morning. He looked around the cottage but could not see a girl. Suddenly a tall man came inside and said nervously:

- Who are you? And what are you doing at my home?

The king, who did not want to tell his real identity, answered:

• I am the knight of king Mark, I was on the hunting in the woods and I lost. It was really late when I saw your cottage and asked that nice girl, who was here yesterday, to spend the night and rest.
• My sister always helps everyone even if she could not be safe – said a tall man loudly.
• I did not want to hurt your sister, I only asked her to let me spend the night here. I am really sorry if you feel miffed. Please let me eat something and I will go away – the king explained.
• All right, here you have some bread and milk. Gulia went on the field with cows and then she will go to the forest for some herbs so no one helps you with preparing the food.  Eat and go away. I don’t like strangers at my house – replied Philip.

King Mark was eating and looking around the poor cottage. He hoped that Gulia come and he will talk to her before his leaving. Suddenly he noticed a small portrait on the wall. It was a painting of a woman. The king was sure that he had already seen  this face but could not remember when and where. He was also surprised why in this poorly furnished small house he could see so well painted image. It had to be painted by someone really talented.

• Who is she? – asked gently pointing the picture.
• Why are you so curious? – replied Philip rudely.

King, who really did not like Gulia’s brother and who was not accustomed that someone behaves in that way in his company, tried to be really nice and friendly. He wanted to know who the woman was. So he tried to ask the last question in very pleasurable way:

• I think I know that woman but I do not remember where I could meet her…
• You can’t meet my mother because she lived far away from the castle and she had never been there! Stop asking intrusive questions and go away! – shouted Philip.

The king was furious but he tried to keep calm. He took his bag and horse and went away…

PART 2 (ITALY-CAPRANICA)

A mysterious pendant

He rode for a long time on his horse, until he arrived in a wood full of raspberries, as red as Lily’s lips. Watching them Mark immediately thought of his beloved daughter, remembering that they were her favourite fruit. So he picked some fruits up for the return, to take to Lily as a gift, and put them in his bag.

Suddenly he heard a familiar voice  and….. from behind a tree, Philip came out very angry: he was furious because they were the raspberries that his mother jealously cultivated and Mark had touched them.

In that moment King Mark remembered the painting he had seen at the cottage, including a small but very important detail: in the neck of Philip’s mother, there in the portrait, there was a necklace with a pendant representing the exact half of a raspberry…. The same pendant that Lily herself always put on her neck!

But it was not the only coincidence, because Philip’s sister and Mark’s wife had the same name: Gulia.

These coincidences made him suspect that………

THE SECRET GARDEN

These coincidences made him suspect that …his wife could be still alive!

In fact, he immediately remembered the pendant that he had seen the day before in the portrait inside the cottage and in order to find out other details of that suspicious story he decided to hide behind the bush where the raspberries were and wait for something to happen. While he was there he saw a woman approaching the cottage. She went near the raspberry bush, she dug a hole in the ground, she put a parchment inside and she quickly ran away.

King Mark became curious about that piece of paper and then he went near the place and he took the parchment out of the hole.

Well…he liked to read what was written there! So he opened it and started reading:

“To whomever this message reaches, I leave it a secret. Anyone who finds that half part of the pendant will make a wish come true”.

Straight away the king thought about his beautiful and unlucky daughter Lily and he said to himself that he had to find the pendant representing the exact half part of a raspberry and gave it to Lily to make her talking again.

So he went into the cottage for the last time and started to look for anything important in every corner of that place but after a while he felt so miserable because nothing was inside that house.

He decided to go out but he tripped in a chair and he went against the portrait. From behind the frame something dropped down: it was the half pendant. He could hardly believe his eyes. He was astounded and overwhelmed by this event. He picked the pendant up but at that moment the door opened and…

THE  TIME  MACHINE

At that moment the door opened and Philip entered the room infuriated. Without saying a word, he took the pendant from the king’s hands and after that he locked him inside the small, dark and scary room.

The king began  looking around, until his eye fell on a huge, strange, mysterious machine. He looked at it carefully and read on its front door:  “the future is in your hands”.

He climbed on it, sat inside and…as if by magic, it immediately started to move and made a fantastic trip in space and time… it finally stopped in a place called the kingdom of Politaly, Italland of the future, where everything was the same, or different, as you prefer.

 In that world he immediately met his daughter and Gulia, the girl from the cottage, both prisoners of a witch and a strange character at the beginning King Mark could not identify. The two girls looked at him asking for help with their scared eyes. Then Mark’s eyes widened: that person was Philip with one half of the raspberry pendant in his hand. Being very frightened, he went back to the time machine and returned to the present to save his daughter. But when he returned home he found no one, there, everything was so empty and so sad… Perhaps what he had seen in Italland had already happened, and was not the future, but the past…

He took an immediate decision, mounted on his horse and walked quickly to the cottage again. He entered the room where Philip had locked him up, before the trip in the time machine and, suddenly, in front of him, a huge wardrobe appeared. He opened its doors and…

The Twin Girls

Part 3 (Italy - Vejano)

….And with big amazement he saw the baby shoes and the clothes that his daughter wore the day when she was born.

He couldn’t understand, his mind was overwhelmed by a whirl of thoughts. He realized that in order to make this mystery clear he would have had to come back in time to the day when his daughter was born. 

He returned to the time machine and he set the desired date to travel in the past. In a second he found himself  in his wife’s room, in his castle. The woman started to have the first pains of childbirth. She lay on her bed suffering but happy for the pregnancy. He approached her, he touched her hands and he reassured her.

Next to his wife, there were two women, called to help her to give birth. One of them was turned back and he couldn’t see who she was. The other was his old nurse. He looked back at his beloved Gulia and he went out of the room because men were not allowed to attend the birth. Yet he had to understand  what had happened. He had come for this purpose.

He saw his wife giving birth to a beautiful baby girl. What an incredible emotion! He cried for the excitement and for the happiness but he had to remain lucid. It was the moment to understand.

The nurse left the room to announce the happy event to the king. The unknown woman turned her face and Mark realized that she was the woman that he had seen in the cottage. At that point something extraordinary happened: his wife gave birth to a second baby girl.

King Mark couldn't believe his eyes but now everything made sense.

Unfortunately the surprises weren't finished: the unknown woman, taking advantage of the absence of the old nurse and of the sleep of the king’s wife exhausted by the birth, took one of the twins and escaped. The girl was wearing the same shoes and the same clothes he had seen in the wardrobe.

He couldn't lose any time. The king returned to the present and suddenly in the room where he was locked, Philip entered. “Go away”, he said. “I don’t want a thief in my house”. The King would have liked to scream that he was the thief or better his mother, but he decided that it wasn’t the right moment and he left the cottage.

The sovereign took his way to the castle and he was immediately assaulted by the thought of his daughters prisoners of Philip: was it the past or the future? Along the way he was thinking of how to recover the pendant held by Philip when he met Gulia. His heart was beating strongly for the emotion, now he knew that she was his daughter and he wondered: “I cannot let her go away! I must reunite my family at any cost”.

He asked her if she could accompany him in the forest, because he got lost. The girl decided to help him and during the journey Mark revealed her that he was the king of Italland. In order to thank her for welcoming him to the cottage, he invited her for dinner in his castle. When they arrived, he introduced his daughter Lily and the two girls were amazed by their resemblance. So King Mark took courage and told the two girls about their tragic story. They looked at each other for a moment and then, with emotion, they hugged crying. The king was very happy to see his two daughters together after a very long time.

But to be really happy, something was still missing ...

PART IV (Ruda Śląska)

THE MYSTERY OF THE PENDANT REVEALED

King Mark decided to look for the woman who dug the parchment in the ground. It took him a long time to find her in a cottage far away from the castle. It turned out she had some magic powers. King Mark wanted her to tell him the story of the mysterious pendant with the image of the raspberry on it. The woman told him the secret story.

 The fact that  Philip’s mother stole one of the royal babies cast a spell on her son.  She went to the woman who lived in the forest because she knew she had some magic powers and asked her for help. The woman gave her a special pendant which was meant to free Philip from the spell and make him happy again.

One day there was a terrible storm. Philip was running in the rain and he lost the pendant. During the storm a thunder hit the pendant and cut it into two pieces. Next day Philip came back to take the pendant but he found only the half of it. As a result,  the spell returned and he was again an unhappy and unfriendly man.  The other part of the pendant was once found by king’s daughter, Lily while she was playing in the forest. King Mark liked the pendant and he let his beloved daughter take it.

The woman king Mark was talking to in the cottage told him one more thing, "If someone has the whole pendant, he will be happy forever but  Philip will be cursed forever".

King Mark was really surprised to hear the story of the pendant and its consequences. He left the cottage, mounted his horse Rufus and went to the castle. All the way back home he kept thinking about the whole situation.

He had to make a decision.

He thought, "I felt unhappy because my beloved daughter Lily is dumb. But now it is different: I have my both daughters, they are so cheerful and happy to be together. So maybe I shouldn’t expect more happiness in my own life". King Mark was a wise man and he knew he should do something to save Philip’s unhappy soul. He felt everyone deserves to be glad. He told the story of the pendant to his daughters and asked Lily if she would sacrifice the pendant. Lily was kind and generous and knew what it means to suffer so she agreed to give the pendant to the one who needed it more.

Next day king Mark went to the forest and found Philip’s cottage. He gave him the half of the pendant which belonged to Lily. It was the moment when Philip felt that something changed in his heart but he kept it secret. King Mark invited him to the castle. A few days later a reception was organized in the castle. Philip asked Lily to dance and this dance joined their hearts. The moment he kissed Lily she felt she could speak. Amazed and happy they thought about the power of the pendant.

 "It is the power of love, forgiveness and sacrifice", king Mark thought with his heart full of peace.