Last week, I sat down with Ash, an intern at Massa Lubrense’s Archaeoclub and we dicovered the Campanian Folklore.
What stuck out to me most were the following three tales—one I’d heard of before we met, and two that I did not.
Campanian Folklore: Hercules and Amalfi
The hero Hercules, after his twelve labors, fell in love with a beautiful nymph named Amalfi.
The two of them were a perfect blend of strength and fragility: he was harsh where she was soft, and she was delicate where he was coarse. Their love was such that the Gods, in their envy, smote Amalfi dead. Hercules wept for his love, and resolved to find somewhere to lay her to rest.
He traveled the whole of the world and found nowhere that compared, in look or in weather, to Campania’s coast. It was, to be specific, a “quiet place that was kissed by the sun and overlooked a beautiful sea.”
Here, he buried Amalfi, and named the land for her.
Janare (Dianari)
The Janare (or Dianari) are bird-women. Akin to harpies, their name is hypothesized to be etymologically rooted in Diana’s, Goddess of the hunt and the moon.
Linked to witches, the Janare were believed to be able sow horror and disorder in the home; their existence was often used to reason with sleep paralysis or nightmare.
To protect oneself from the Janare, place a broom outside the door—they’ll be unable to resist counting all of the bristles.
Parthenope
Parthenope was one of the three sirens who tried to lure Odysseus to his death.
Similar to her sisters, Ligeia and Leucosia, Parthenope thrust herself into the sea to drown when she was unable to entice the sailor to his doom.
She washed ashore on the shores of Naples, which was—for a time—named Parthenope in her honor.
Prior to the Hellenistic period, Parthenope’s cult exceeded that of all other Gods and local heroes. This success was owed to her transformation from a fearful monster to a protective guardian—the shift of a siren from that of a sword to that of a shield
