"Between Cordovado and Venchieredo, one mile between the two towns, there is a large and clear fountain that also has the voice of containing many cooling and healthy qualities in its water. But the nymph of the fountain did not believe that she only trusted the virtues of water to lure the devotees and surrounded herself with such a beautiful horizon of meadows, woods and sky, and with such a hospitable shade of alders and willows that it is in truth a recess worthy of Virgil's brush this where she liked to place her room.
Hidden and meandering paths, the whisper of rivulets, sweet and mossy slopes, nothing is missing all around. It is precisely the mirror of a sorceress, that clear blue water that, gushing insensibly from a bottom of tiny gravel, rose to double in her womb the image of such a picturesque and pastoral scene.
They are places that make one think of the inhabitants of Eden before sin; and they also make us think without disgust about sin now that we are no longer inhabitants of Eden.
There, therefore, around that fountain, the vague girls of Cordovado, Venchieredo and even Teglio, Fratta, Morsano, Cintello and Bagnarola, and other nearby villages, have used to gather on festive evenings since time immemorial. And they stay there for a long time in songs in laughter in conversations in snacks until the mother, the lover and the moon lead them back home. I did not even want to tell you that young men also compete with girls, because it was already something to imagine. But what I intend to note is that, having made the accounts at the end of the year, I believe and affirm that people come to the Venchieredo fountain more to make love than to drink; and besides, more wine is drunk there than water. You know; in these cases it is necessary to obey the sausages and ham of the snacks more than the superstition of passing water.
I for myself there were the beautiful vaults to that enchanting fountain; but once only once did I dare to profane with my hand the virgin crystal of her sap. The hunt had led me there, broken by fatigue and burned with thirst; more, my flask of white wine no longer wanted to cry. If I went back now, maybe I would drink it in large sips as if to rejuvenate myself ... "
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