Barefoot, running on the earth between stones and brambles with sweat mingling with the blood of wounds: in Pacentro it is the first Sunday in September, that of the Gypsy Run that for centuries has awarded the young winner glory, a piece of cloth and a rightful place in Pacentro history.
A tradition that has its roots in Roman times and over the centuries has evolved by bringing together the pagan and the sacred. An extreme race in which competitors compete against each other but more importantly challenge themselves in honor of Our Lady of Loreto. Young people from this beautiful town in Majella National Park climb up a rocky ridge of the Ardinghi Hill and, at the sound of the bell of the Church of the Virgin, they scramble down the steep path to the Vella stream, then up the village streets until they reach the altar of the Madonna. That is the finish line where the bloody sores of the feet are dressed and where the proclamation of the winner takes place.
A rite of very ancient origins that is intertwined with the legend according to which boys who owned nothing, neither shoes nor clothes, defined for this reason as “gypsies,” especially participated in this race. A very hard test that, according to the narrative, was used by the leader Jacopo Caldora to choose the most valuable young men to enlist in his army of mercenaries.
In the old days, the winner was given the Palio as a prize, and that was cloth to have a dress sewn. Today the most coveted prize is being able to feel an important part of a community that wants to assert its identity by rebelling against what seems to be the designated fate for mountain villages: depopulation. In this sense, the Gypsy Run renews a great tradition to look boldly into the near future.
Information, contacts, photo credit: corsadeglizingari.it
