Every noon the world ceases to exist here, on the ridge of the rocky outcrop that ends at the bay of Aegiali. This small village, Tholaria, seems so high in the sky, but I would not say the same about the landscape in the night of this place, when the night stars are the world that surrounds its houses and cobblestone streets, as they travel on their stone boat, on the sea and on the winds. The silence of midday, which sometimes makes you think that you are the only and loneliest being in the Universe and sometimes that you are one with the vastness of the Universe, in an intoxicating sense of joy, turns into a nightly pandemonium, into a sea of unknown flying shimmers, with the jumble of sounds of a crazy circulation and terrible movement, with the wind embracing you and lifting you even closer to all of this… You have set sail and are sailing in other countries, unknown to you until now. The stars seem unable to distinguish shapes in the darkness, since they often collide with walls, trees, but also with each other, while other times they fall on passers-by. They so carelessly shine their wisdom on time travelers... And indeed, anyone could become a time traveler, just by looking up at the night sky.
The first time I visited this island, I knew that something vague would take shape in my consciousness. It didn't take me long to understand that what had long magnetized the atmosphere around my dreamy compass was the vague concept of freedom. After all, this is the usual reason for a trip: the deep need for escape. I can't say that I had in mind the change of dimension - although such ideas always float above my head. However, it would have been enough for me to pass by there, simply to enjoy the color of this place. If there really are ships that travel to the lands of dreams, then I can say that I traveled on one of them - and I hope from now on to be eternally welcomed on the bow of...
The Earth is unexplored! With this feeling I always leave this small island at the other end of the Aegean. Amorgos was known in antiquity as Pangali, Psychia, Karkisia, Platagia and Hyperia. In one of the ports of the island, Katapola, were the summer palaces of Minos, the judge of the dead and king of Kato, and thus the area in antiquity was called Minoa.
In today's Tholaria was the old cemetery of the village, which existed on the opposite slope, called Vigla (which means "watchtower"). The name Tholaria, therefore, is related to the tombs or domes or vaulted tombs. The history of the village of Vigla begins from the location of this hill. It is a panoramic hill of the Aegean, which sank into the earth due to an earthquake and when it emerged again from the bowels of the earth, there was absolutely no building on it! The locals say that there is a cave there, called Labyrinth, and that whoever enters it gets lost and never returns. Below this hill, on the left, is the port of Aegiali and an endless coast. Approximately in the center of this coast, lie the stone remains of an ancient Roman temple, which dates back to the 6th century AD. If one walks a little further, one will find a domed ancient building, from which an entire ancient Roman settlement continues into the sea. Local fishermen, crossing the water with their boat above this point, often see the ancient buildings on the seabed, when the sea is calm and almost transparent.
On the opposite bank, it is said that there is an underwater cave that reaches Plakoti, that is, the high hill. A little further on, straddling the other ridge of the rock, is Lagada. Looking at it from the opposite side, it looks like the twin village of Tholaria, also built at almost the same altitude. Its oldest inhabitants still remember the face of a girl named Pelagia, while this name is known to all the locals, since legend says that the wind still breathes heavily, whispering her name at night. Pelagia was no tortured young woman! She was a girl from one of the richest families on the island and her engagement was not long in coming, as she was also very beautiful. Her fiancé, Manolis, planned to take her with him to Athens, after he had finished his military service and then he would marry her. Pelagia waited patiently for him, preparing her dowries, and when he returned to the island, Pelagia felt like she was living in a dream. But Manolis, without expecting it, fell in love with another woman and left the island with her forever! Poor Pelagia, no matter how hard her relatives tried to bring her to her senses, was withering away, day by day. She would "sweep" the streets in the evenings, dressed in white, with her hair disheveled, chattering like a madwoman. She had lost her mind and everyone had begun to fear her, because she was constantly swearing and cursing. When they found her dead in a well, they did not know whether she had fallen to end her life or if she had stumbled. One thing was certain: that her soul had now found peace. The very next new moon, when a shepherd was passing by the well, he heard a voice coming from its depths. At first, he thought that someone had fallen into the well and was asking for help, but unfortunately for him, instead of hearing cries for help when he stopped, the worst curses and screams were heard coming from somewhere very far away. Suddenly, a thin figure dressed in white with long flowing hair appeared before him. The closer he got, the more deafening the screams and the hellish sounds she brought with her. The soul of Pelagia - the "Saint of the Sea" - had not calmed down. She frightened passersby, and especially young women, with her nightmarish sounds, and so, never, ever, was erased from people's memory...
In the north of the island there is a protected harbor and just above it an old quarry, from where it is known that strange bangs and vibrations as from explosions are heard, while an even more curious phenomenon is the intense flashes that often appear there. The Mine, as it is known, is about four hours away from Potamos on foot. The path is known to very few. Although the Mine has been abandoned since the 1950s, it is known that there is unexploited bauxite in its galleries, a whole underground wealth. However, something strange pushed the company that exploited it to bankruptcy and its withdrawal from the projects. Later, they said that the safety measures were simply not followed, but the accidents of the workers were so many that one could say that the place is cursed. Many people have described with awe the view of this landscape, where the rock abruptly cuts in two and reveals before us the natural harbor that opens up to the vast sea. Far down on the rock, the abandoned buildings and the rusty rails that pass through the galleries and reach the sea constitute a terrible contrast of industrial aesthetics immersed in such a remote and natural landscape. The half-collapsed pier with the abandoned carts gives the impression that this place was abandoned very suddenly and hastily, and perhaps the reason was the demolition of this pier.
The chaotic openings of the earth beneath your feet begin to become especially terrifying when the vibrations of the ground reach your toes, like a shock activation from the Underworld! A small voice (probably yours) monologues: "The Earth is very deep!..." These intermittent vibrations must have been familiar to those who got lost in the cavernous openings, trying to dig deeper. Since then, the earth has become angry and trembles, warning and intimidating those who approach these openings. They say that there was once a girl who wandered around the Mine and lived a strange life. They even said that they saw her wandering around this place every month, lifting her dresses and watering the earth with her menstrual blood. Whoever followed her to the Mine would enter the oldest cave enchanted and after this passage, would lose their reason and whatever happened there would be erased from their memory. Only when they returned to the surface of the earth, could they understand that something important had happened to them and that they would never be the same person again. Some said that this girl was not human, but an elf who had come from the Underworld. Others, again, said that even today the sacred mysteries of fertility are held, the Phrygian Mysteries of Cybele and that this girl had something to do with all of this…
In general, it was believed that children born on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve were leprechauns. These children made a lot of mischief and had the habit of wandering around the fields and villages, entering other people's houses and stealing, but no one ever saw them, because they could be invisible to the human eye. The Aerika, in general, have the property of being invisible and the most terrifying of them all is "Paroras", the one who comes out pagan "paraora", that is, hours past and forbidden for ordinary Christians. The locals say that he haunts the alleys after midnight and makes a lot of noise with his footsteps. No one wants to meet him.
When talking about the Underworld, locals often refer to the Abyss. There is a cave in Chora, under the little church behind the Mills. This hill is besieged by the winds and, in the distance, the steep rocks that end in the sea make the landscape look particularly wild. It was known that in this treacherous hole the locals used to dispose of their garbage from the 11th century (!) until today, and yet, it never filled up! Once an old woman lost her goat in this cave and would have considered it dead if it had not been bleating insistently from the "Underworld". So, a young man came and went down into the cave. He then saw that there was a plateau that jutted out into the steep and black hole, where the goat had fallen and remained, bleating incessantly. He hung a rope and went down to the plateau to raise it, and later recounted that from where he stood, he saw the Abyss. A black hole so deep that the echo of his voice could be heard all the way to the other end of the Earth. There are many such deceptive holes on the island, which the locals call Vothones and are believed to end in the sea. In Tholaria, specifically, there are three.
In Chora, the castle is also noteworthy, located on a huge monolith in the center of the village!! There were many openings in this rock, as the visitor can see, but they have been blocked with stones and sealed with large white exorcistic crosses, as well as small chapels (of which there are six around its entire circumference, forming the rays of a hexagon). At the highest point of the huge monolith, another chapel is built, with a fairly small door, which the many small steps that lead up to it end in. It is usually locked, but the secret key is in the possession of a lady, who offers to open the entrance to anyone who wishes and the descriptions call her "strangely picturesque"...
The classic concept of charm still exists in Amorgos and is usually special words that will “bind” the spell. Other names for them are: “gyalou” (for elsewhere) or “khochlakoi” which means “holes with a hole in the middle”. Such words exist for birds of prey and ants! For example, when someone sees a bird of prey looking for prey or descending, they say special words to “bind” it. In this way, they can take away its ability to aim correctly, so that the bird can attack, but instead of lifting an animal, it will lift some wood or something else. They also “bind” ants, so that they do not steal the grains. Thus, they end up making circles around the grains, without being able to catch them!
Stories of countless shepherds searching for their countless lost goats in countless caves are strangely common throughout Greece, but what makes them seem, more or less, suspicious is precisely the fact that they are countless and that they all have, basically, a common feature. Another such related story unfolds around a beautiful "balsamotopos", which took its name from the bushes and the balsam that grew there (a herbaceous category of mountain mint, according to botanists). In this beautiful place, a shepherd grazed his goats, but every day he lost one. Carefully watching all his animals, he saw that some of them were moving away, until one moment one of them entered a small cave. The shepherd followed the goat into the cave and saw that there was water there. He concluded that this was probably the reason why his animals were entering the cave. To his great surprise, as he later recounted, he found an icon of Saint George there. He ran happily to announce his holy find to the villagers, and so they all decided to build a chapel in honor of the Saint.
In the same place, in ancient times, there was a hydromancy of the god Apollo. It was so well known that people from all parts of Greece and Asia Minor flocked to this sacred water to receive oracles and consult the oracle. The hydromancy operated under the care of the hierophant with the ritual forms imposed by the established religion and during the Apollonian festivals - in honor of the god of divination, Apollo - thousands of people arrived to offer their libations and consult the oracle.
"St. George of Balsamitis", which is said to have been named so because of the characteristic plant that thrived in the area, is known for its "holy water" (or "talking water"), to which prophetic properties are attributed, which is why it is also called the "Pythia of the Archipelago". Once upon a time, a leper lived in the area, who went there to drink water. He washed his face to cool off from the summer heat and automatically noticed that the signs of his illness had disappeared from it. Since then, the water of St. George of Balsamitis has become famous for its miraculous properties. Thus, it is possible that the name Balsamitis has arisen from its characterization as a "healer", because balsam also means medicinal.
At first, this water was considered healing, but later it became a Christian hydromaniac! Any believer who wanted to consult the holy water would go to church, make the sign of the cross while worshipping the icon of the Saint, light a candle and ask Saint George for his help. He would take water with a white cup and depending on the signs that would appear in the initially clear water, he would decide whether the case he was studying would proceed or not. Then he would worship the icon of Saint George again, make the sign of the cross and leave. (The icon of Saint George depicts the Saint as a horseman killing a snake or a dragon with a sword. In Amorgos there are many legends that relate the caves to the dragons that often inhabit them). However, there were not many who could explain the “signs” of the holy water. Usually, this ability was possessed by some elders and some priests. The signs of the water were red hairs (which appeared inexplicably!) which meant death, white hairs and doves which meant profit, black hairs etc. The inhabitants of the island, in some times, would not start anything, before consulting the holy water first!…
Finally, the hydromancy ceased to function at the end of the 60s, because many marriages were ruined on the island, due to its oracles! And because many people resorted to the judgment and advice of the holy water for funny and insignificant matters, His Eminence Metropolitan Gabriel of Thira decided to block the source of the holy water with concrete!...
The most famous (but also the strangest) monastery in the Small Cyclades is that of "Virgin Mary of Hozoviotissa", whose miraculous icon was found there, as they say, in a miraculous way. During the Iconoclasm in Byzantium, a woman from Hozava in Asia Minor, trying to save the icon of the Virgin Mary from the wrath of the persecutors, put it in a small fishing boat with a lit lamp and left it at sea. The Virgin Mary, they say, wanted Her icon to come to Amorgos. The boat anchored in the so-called Daimonotopos, near the coast of Agia Anna. (It is believed that the steep rocks were named so because they evoke the feeling of a haunted place.). The shepherds saw the light of the lamp that was miraculously burning in the anchored fishing boat and called the priests of Chora. The priests took the icon of the Mother of God to the church of Kyra-Leoussa in Chora, after first praying. However, because the icon was found in the Demonic Land, they wanted to build a monastery there. And so they did, but they were in for a surprise. During the day they built and at night an inexplicable force demolished what had been built. Then the master builder asked the Virgin Mary to show him the place where Her Grace wanted the monastery to be built. The next morning, the workers were amazed to see the chisel nailed to the rock, where the bell tower is today, the master builder's basket and his tools hanging. Thus, the monastery was built in 1088 on that steep rock, at a height of three hundred meters above the sea, and the chisel remained stuck in the rock until 1956, when the monastery's estates were expropriated. Only then did it fall into the monastery courtyard and the faithful considered the event a sign of the Virgin Mary's reaction to the expropriation. Another tradition says that the monastery has a total of 101 cells, one of which is secret, and that inside it is the boat that brought the icon to the island! Many miracles are said to have been performed by the Virgin Mary of Chozoviotissa, and one of them is the islets to the east of the island, which are supposed to be the marble ships of the pirates who had once set out with the intention of coming and stealing the treasures of the monastery...
The old Amorgians believed that there was a cave in Mandoulia, the Drosospilia. This cave was said to be haunted and inhabited by a Dragon. No one was able to reach its end, because when someone tried, strange and very strange things happened to them. One of these strange things was the strange way in which they extinguished the candles they carried with them to illuminate the gallery. They say that once a young and strong man attempted to enter deep into the cave, to discover its mystery. As he was walking along holding his lit candle, a breath of his extinguished the flame and when there was complete darkness around him, he felt two hands hitting him in the face, but he could neither catch them nor see them. Since then, there have been many others who have told the same story, until no other human dared to set foot there again...
There are countless instructive legends in this place, which have contributed to shaping the morals of the island's inhabitants. Typical examples of them are the rock of Myrizontas and the Fall of the Old Woman. Once upon a time, pirates and corsairs made frequent raids on the island, plundering the villages, stealing property and killing women and children. The locals found refuge in the caves when they saw enemy ships approaching the coast from above. Once upon a time, a young shepherd sat and played his flute, grazing his sheep high above Aegiali, in the village of Lagada. Looking out to sea, he saw the pirates arriving and then, to alert the villagers, he began to play a slogan, the lyrics of which were as follows: "The Turkish villagers have arrived, run and hide", a slogan that the locals often sang among themselves. Everyone understood the slogan and ran to the shelter of the Holy Trinity. Then the Turks came and caught the shepherd (who understood that he was playing the slogan) and when they saw that they could not make him testify where the others were, they tortured him, stoned him with a rock and killed him. The rock with which they stoned him has been fragrant ever since and until recently anyone who passed by was enchanted by its smell. Thus it was called Myrizona.
A similar lesson for the villagers is the "Gremisma tis Grias", which tells the story of another pirate raid, when the villagers once went up to hide in the quarry and left behind an old woman who was sick and could not walk. The pirates caught her and told her that they would kill her if she did not show them where her fellow villagers had hidden. She led them to the quarry in Krukelos and tortured them. They threw her off the cliff and caught her fellow villagers, most of whom they killed. Since then, this place has been called the "Gremisma tis Grias".
In the old days, many people searched for some hidden treasure in Amorgos and spread the word that a rock has a map carved on it, but it is very difficult to decipher. However, nowadays, a treasure is considered to be any rare person who is truly hard to find and unique, and anyone who passes through the island of wonders even for a short time becomes one! Oh yes, the meeting point of so many unique travelers, ..maybe one day you will meet them too.
by LENA ADAMOPOULOU
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