History and Myth

2009-04-09T12:40:00.001-07:00

ETWINNING CONNECTS SCHOOLS
AND IT IS A NEW WAY TO TEACH.

SHOW ME YOUR WORLD

	PROJECT:	The students show their schools, activities, celebrations to the students from other countries. They also introduce their homeplace, hobbies, traditions as well as favourite musicians, singers, sportsmen. They speak about climate and environment. All works will be uploaded to eTwinning portal using different web tools: PowerPoint, Picasa, Windows Movie Maker. They can create Blogs and organize chattins via Skype or Windows Messenger. The studenst can print out the works and organize an exhibition at schools.
	Founder schools:	Basisschool De Weijerhof (Paesi bassi) Väätsa Basic School (Estonia)
	Partner schools:	istituto comprensivo Paolo Borsellino (Italia) Polkemmet Primary (Regno Unito) Scoala "Liviu Rebreanu" Mioveni, Arges (Romania) Szkoła Podstawowa Nr 5 im. Szarych Szeregów (Polonia) ZŠ Dostojevského Poprad (Slovacchia)

THE RAINBOW: A PHILIPPINE MYTH

2009-04-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

A Philippine Myth
Myths try to explain many kinds of natural phenomena: why there is rain, rainbow, thunder, lightning, earthquake, eclipse, and the like. The rain is believed by many as the tears shed by a man longing for his vanished wife, a Diwata (fairy) throwing out water in the sky.The rainbow is believed to be the flower loving daughter of Bathala, who was cursed by the latter to stay on earth forever because of her failure to attend a family council ordered by the Bathala. Other believed that the rainbow is not a person but a road from the sky to the earth that a man built so that his star wife and child could visit him without any difficulty.

A long time ago Gods lived on the earth most of the time.

One day Bathala wanted to controll her Palace.

So She rode her horse and started to travel across the ocean,but when she arrived at the horizon her horse stopped and went back because the jump was too long even for him.

So Bathala ordered to her servants to let down a carpet of seven colours,so Bathala and her horse walked the rainbow.

FESTIVALS AND FAIRS

2009-04-02T04:52:00.000-07:00

"CENE (SUPPER) OF SAINT JOSEPH"

FESTIVALS AND FAIRS

If you are in SALEMI around the 19th March, you can attend the Saint Joseph’s Day that occurs every year. The origins of this festival are lost in antiquity. It is a mix of paganism and religion.
On Saint Joseph’s Day, the inhabitants of SALEMI prepare votive altars vesting them with modelled bread: sun, moon, cross, dove, lamb, flower, chalice shaped. The so prepared altars are called “Cene (Suppers) of Saint Joseph” reminding the Last Supper of Jesus and his apostles.
The altars consist of a wooden structure vested with the modelled bread, oranges and lemons. On the altars lay white embroidered altar-cloths on which are put some token object: wine carafe, flowers, candles. At the foot of the altars there is a carpet on which are put a bread lamb, a carafe of water, a white towel.
You can see “Cene (Suppers) of Saint Joseph” also in Mazara even if it is not an old tradition.

The Legend of Spring: THE RAPE OF PROSERPINE

2009-04-02T04:34:00.000-07:00

PROSERPINE (Proserpina), the Latin form of Persephone,' a Greek goddess, daughter of Zeus and the earth-goddess Demeter. In Greek mythology. Demeter and Proserpine were closely associated, being known together as the two goddesses, the venerable or august goddesses, sometimes as the great goddesses. Proserpine herself was commonly known as the daughter (Core), sometimes as the first-born. As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below. 2 This legend was localized in various places, as at Eleusis, Lerna, and "that fair field of Enna" in Sicily. Torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. So all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Pluto to let Proserpine go. But before he let her go Pluto made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him for ever. 3 So it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds (according to later authors, one-half) of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Pluto beneath the earth. 4 There can be little doubt that this is a mythological expression for the growth of vegetation in spring and its disappearance in autumn. According to Theopompus there was a Western people who actually called the spring Proserpine. As wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men. The lake of Avernus, as an entrance to the infernal regions, was sacred to her. From the head of a dying person Proserpine was supposed to cut a lock of hair which had been kept sacred and unshorn through life. 5 She was sometimes identified with Hecate. On the other hand in her character of goddess of the spring she was honoured with flower-festivals in Sicily and at Hipponium in Italy. Sicily was a favourite haunt of the two 1 Some, however, regard Proserpina as a native Latin form, not borrowed from the Greek, and connected with proserpere, meaning the goddess who aided the germination of the seed.
The story is reminiscent of the old form of marriage by capture. The idea that persons who have made their way to the abode of the dead can return to the upper world if they have not tasted the food of the dead appears elsewhere, as in New Zealand
. The Sicilians claimed to be the first on whom Demeter had bestowed the gift of corn, and hence they honoured the two goddesses with many festivals. They celebrated the festival of Demeter when the corn began to shoot, and the descent of Proserpine when it was ripe. At Cyare, a fountain near Syracuse which Pluto made to spring up when he carried off his bride, the Syracusans held an annual festival in the course of which bulls were sacrificed by being drowned in the water. The regular form of her name in Greek was Persephone, but various other forms occur: Phersephone, Persephassa, Phersephassa, Pherrephatta, &c., to explain which different etymologies were invented. Corresponding to Proserpine as goddess of the dead is the old Norse goddess Hel (Gothic Halja), whom Saxo Grammaticus calls Proserpine.

History and Myth In Sicily

2009-03-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

History and Myth

In Sicily

Sicily is a fantastic land, in which dream and reality became one and everything seems possible.

Mito: from the Greek Myth, means a story with an hide philosophical truth. It's used to teach, like a parable.

Legend: it's a story derived from an historical event really happened. In the oral tradition the history absorbed imaginary particulars that transformed it.

Colapesce Legend

Colapesce is the most loved and known sicilian legends in the world. Many american and european poets had written story based on its. Colapesce is from Messina. He is son of a fishing man and he spent his days swimming in the sea. One day his mother tired for his behaviour throw him a spell. So Cola became half man and half fish and never came back to the land. One day Sicily King, listened his story, wanted to meet him. He went near Messina, where Colapesce lived, and throw in the waves a golden cup. Cola took it from the submarine abyss and told the king what marvellous things he had seen. The king throw in the sea his crown and Cola took it and told that he has seen Sicily surrepted from three columns. One was deleted, the other was in bad condition, just one was good. He also told that in the abyss there was a magical fire. The king didn't believe him and throw, for the third time, his golden ring in sea. Cola, altough exausted, dived again, but he told the king if he had seen legumis went back afloat, meant he had remained in bottom to the sea. After some hours the ring went back, but it was burnt. After a few time also the legumis went back, and they had burned too. Cola had remained in the bottom to the sea, maybe to support the last column. Its sacrifice saved Sicily, and that's why Sicilian people love him so much.