Kola-Fish
In Messina, right on the shore of the blue Strait of Messina, stood a small hut. In it lived a fisherman's widow with her only son, whose name was Cola.When little Cola was born, he was greeted by the sound of the sea. When he laughed for the first time, he laughed at the sunbeams dancing on the waves.
As soon as the boy learned to walk, he ran straight to the sea.
His toys were dried starfish washed ashore by the tide and shiny pebbles smoothed by the water.
So it was no wonder that the sea felt more like home to the boy than the hut itself!
But his mother feared the sea. After all, it had taken her father, her brother, and then her husband.
That’s why, whenever the boy swam even a little away from the shore, his mother would run out of the house and shout:
"Come back, Cola! Come back, Cola!"
And Cola obediently turned back to the shore.
But one day, when she called him, Cola laughed, waved at her, and swam further out.
Then his mother got angry and shouted after him:
"If the sea is dearer to you than your mother, then go live in the sea like a fish!"
She didn’t wish any harm on her son; she just shouted in the heat of the moment, as many mothers do when their children upset them. But whether it was a day of miracles or an evil sorcerer heard her words, Cola truly remained in the sea forever. Webbing grew between his fingers, his throat swelled and became like a frog's.
The poor mother, seeing what her careless words had caused, fell ill with grief and died a few days later.
The hut, now abandoned, grew dilapidated and crooked. But once a year, on the very day the mother had uttered her unintended curse, Cola would swim to the shore and gaze sadly at the house he could no longer return to.
On those days, the fishermen of Messina, their wives, and children would not go near that place. Not because they feared the fish-man. Cola was their great friend. He untangled their nets when they got caught on devilfish, showed them which way the schools of fish were moving, and warned them of the ever-changing treacherous underwater currents. The fishermen stayed away from the old hut so as not to disturb Cola as he faced his sorrow alone. They, too, lived by the same principle—they shared their joys but bore their griefs in solitude.
One day, the king heard about Cola the Fish. He wanted to see such a wonder for himself. The king ordered all sailors to keep a sharp lookout when they went to sea, in case Cola appeared. If they saw him, they were to tell him that the king himself wished to speak with him.
At dawn one day, a sailor on a schooner spotted Cola playing in the waves in the open sea, like a large dolphin. The sailor cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted:
"Hey, Cola the Fish, swim to Messina! The king wants to speak with you!"
Cola immediately turned toward the shore. By noon, he swam up to the palace stairs that led straight into the water.
The chief of the coast guard reported this to the gatekeeper, the gatekeeper to the junior footman, the junior footman to the senior valet, and finally, the senior valet dared to inform the king.
The king, in his robe and crown, descended halfway down the stairs and spoke:
"Listen to me, Cola the Fish! My kingdom is vast and rich. I know everything that lies on land. But what lies beneath the waves in my underwater domain is unknown to anyone, even to me. I want you to explore it and tell your king."
"Very well," replied Cola, and he disappeared into the depths of the sea.
When Cola returned, he shared many wonders. He told of valleys, mountains, and caves on the seabed. He spoke of groves of colorful coral, cold currents, and hot springs gushing from the crevices of underwater mountains. He described strange fish that no one had ever seen, living far below in the eternal green twilight. Only in one place could Cola not reach the bottom—near the great Messina lighthouse.
"Ah, what a disappointment!" exclaimed the king. "That’s precisely what I most wanted to know—what Messina stands upon. I beg you, dive deeper."
Cola nodded and dove again—only a light splash rippled the water.
He was gone for a full day and night. When he returned, exhausted and weary, he said to the king:
"Listen, king, I still couldn’t reach the bottom. But I saw that Messina stands on a cliff, and the cliff rests on three pillars. Woe to you, Messina!
One pillar is still intact, another has cracked, and the third is about to collapse."
"And what do the pillars stand on?" asked the king. "We must know, Cola the Fish."
"I cannot dive any deeper," replied Cola. "The water below is heavy as stone. It hurts my eyes, chest, and ears."
"Jump from the top of the lighthouse watchtower," suggested the king. "You won’t even notice how you’ll reach the bottom."
The tower stood right at the mouth of the strait. In those ancient times, watchmen took turns keeping guard there. When a hurricane approached, the watchman would blow a horn and unfurl a flag in the wind. Seeing this, ships would head out to the open sea, away from land, to avoid being dashed against the coastal rocks.
Cola the Fish climbed the watchtower and plunged into the waves from its top.
This time, Cola was gone for three days and three nights. Only at dawn on the fourth day did his head appear above the water. He swam with great difficulty to the palace stairs and sat on the first step.
"Woe to you, Messina, a dark day is coming, and you will turn to dust!" he said, barely catching his breath.
"Tell me quickly, what did you see?" the king exclaimed impatiently.
"What lies at the bottom?"
Cola shook his head.
"I don’t know. I still couldn’t reach the bottom. Smoke and flames rise from somewhere below. The smoke has clouded the water, and the fire has made it hot. No living creature, neither fish nor starfish, can go deeper than I did."
"Before, I asked you, but now I command: whatever lies below, you must discover what Messina stands upon."
Cola the Fish smiled wryly.
"Listen, king! You can’t catch the wind or the waves, even with the finest net.
And I am kin to the wind and the waves! You cannot command me. Farewell, Your Majesty."
He slid off the steps into the water and prepared to swim away.
Then the king, in a fit of anger, stamped his feet, tore off his crown, and threw it into the water.
"What have you done, king!" cried Cola. "That crown is worth untold treasures!"
"Yes," agreed the king, "there is no other crown like it in the world. If you don’t retrieve it from the depths, I’ll have to do what all kings do when they need money. I’ll impose a tax on all the fishermen of Sicily, and sooner or later, my tax collectors will squeeze a new crown out of them."
Cola the Fish sat back down on the steps.
"Very well, king! For the sake of the fishermen’s children, I’ll try to reach the bottom. But my heart tells me I’ll never see the Sicilian sky above me again. Give me a handful of lentils; I’ll take them with me. If I perish in the depths, you’ll know."
A silver dish was brought with lentils. Cola clenched the flat grains in his hand and dove into the sea.
The king posted guards at the spot where Cola had disappeared.
For seven days, the guards kept their eyes on the sea, and on the eighth day, they suddenly saw lentils floating on the water. Then everyone understood that Cola would never return.
And following the lentils bobbing on the waves, a strange fish emerged, unlike any ever seen before. Surely, it was one of those deep-sea fish Cola had spoken of.
In its toothy mouth, it held the precious royal crown. The fish rose from the water, placed the crown on the lowest step of the stairs, flicked its tail, and vanished into the sea.
No one knows how the fish-man met his end, the one who went to his death to save the poor from disaster. But stories of him were passed down from grandfather to father, from father to son.
And indeed, the dark day of Messina came. Everything around rumbled and shook.
Mountains split into pieces and crashed down with a roar. The earth opened up, and where there had been flat ground, gaping chasms appeared.
In an instant, the flourishing city turned into a heap of ruins. Cola’s prophecy had come true.
Yet the people did not abandon Messina. After all, everyone holds dearest the land where they were born and lived their lives. The survivors built a new city, even more beautiful than the old one. It still stands today on the shore of the blue Strait of Messina.
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