It is said that Maja, the most beautiful nymph of the Pleiades, fled from Phrygia to rescue her son Hermes, a wonderful giant seriously wounded in battle and chased by the enemy. Crossing the sea, after a tragic shipwreck, she managed to land near the port of the ancient city of Ortona, where, fearing to be reached by her chasers, she picked up the wounded giant and continued her escape climbing the Gran Sasso. In a cave, in which she found refuge, she tried to keep her son alive and for this reason Maja wandered among the peaks of the central Apennines to find a medicinal herb that would cure him. However, the high snow, which covered the entire surrounding area, slowed down the search and Hermes died prematurely, leaving the nymph enveloped in infinite anguish. After desperately mourning the death of her son for days, she buried him on a mountaintop, where even today, anyone observing him from the east can recognize the ‘Sleeping Giant’ in the profile of the mountain range. Distraught and desperate, in the following days Maja began to wander in the mountains until she died of great anguish. The nymph’s relatives, after having adorned her with precious robes, gold and silver vases and garlands of flowers and aromatic herbs, buried her on the majestic mountain in front of the Gran Sasso, which from that day in her memory was called Majella. Even today the shepherds hear her cries on windy days, during which the woods and valleys present reproduce the lament of a mother in tears. For all the people of Abruzzo, the Majella is the “mother of all”, a symbol of the great fertility of the land. Wild and evocative, this mountain has always been an invitation to meditation and prayer.
“Sleeping Giant” The Legend about Majella and Gran Sasso
When the wind thins the clouds and the sky is clear, the Majella is visible even a few meters from the sea: round and maternal when covered with snow, it reflects the light of the sun, smoothed into its blue profile in the summer sunsets.
Majella
A story full of love and spirituality set in a magical place, Abruzzo, the wonderful and surprising greenest region in Europe.
Gran Sasso
