One summer evening, some farmers from Serràia were sitting in the village square chatting about this and that, when suddenly one of them began shouting like a madman.
“Hey, look… look up there!”
“Where? What did you see?”
“There! Halfway up the road to Costalta… Don’t you see it?”
Only then did the others, raising their eyes toward the mountain, witness an extraordinary sight:
an intense light, bright as the sun itself, illuminated part of the forest — as if a star had fallen right there.
“Could it be a fire?” someone asked.
“Of course not — don’t you see there isn’t a wisp of smoke?”
“Then what on earth could it be?” exclaimed a young man. “I’m going up there to see. Who’s coming with me?”
“There’s no need to climb up to Costalta,” said an old man who had remained silent until then, chewing on his pipe, “to know what that light is…”
“Then you know where it comes from?” the others pressed him.
“Of course,” murmured the elder as he walked away, leaving the Serràia square in deep silence.
“It’s the Faded Gold of Costalta!”
From that night on, people believed that Mount Costalta was so full of gold that its veins, when reaching the surface, would fade and burst into blinding flashes of light.
Many have since dug in search of the precious metal — but no one has ever found even a grain of it.
