The Agane

The story

In Friuli, where the mountains sink down towards the plain and the streams run between pale rocks, water has always had a soul.

The people of the valleys knew it. Every spring, every brook, every stream had its mistress. And the mistress had a name.

They called them Aganis, or Agane.

Their name comes from far away. Some say from spoken Latin, where people said aquana, water nymph; others link it to anguis, the snake. In their own way, they were the Alpine sisters of the naiads of the Greeks: spirits of water, but of mountain water, the cold, clear kind that comes down from the ice and the rocks.

What did they look like? Female, always. But of different ages. Some appeared young and beautiful, with long loose hair. Others were old, with lined skin and deep eyes.

But there was one night when it was easier to meet them: the night of the full moon.

Then, they say, they came out of the springs and the streams and dressed in white. Long, light dresses that moved like water. They danced on the stones of the riverbeds and laughed softly, and when their dresses got wet in the stream, they spread them out to dry in the moonlight. Whoever had the luck, or the bad luck, to pass that way would see for a moment a row of white figures, still in the cold air, that looked like mist in the shape of people.

Then, if you stopped to look, it all vanished.

One of the places most closely tied to their appearances is the Macilla stream, near Chiusaforte. There, they say, the Aganis were at home. Nobody ever wrote down what exactly they did there. Only that they were seen, and then were seen no more.

The memory of these creatures has not been lost. Even today, in Friuli, there is a name that recalls them. It is the Ecomuseum of the Friulian Dolomites, which is called, precisely, Lis Aganis. A great "mosaic of places", as they describe it. It takes in the Friulian Dolomites, the Magredi, the marshes of the Livenza, which are a UNESCO site, and the valleys of the Cellina, the Colvera, the Meduna, the Cosa and the Arzino. It is a way of saying that all this water, all this air, all these mountains still have someone to look after them.

In neighbouring Veneto live similar creatures, called Anguane. They have much in common with the Aganis. But that is another story, and it deserves to be told on its own.

If one day you happen to walk along a stream in Friuli, on a clear evening, with the moon high and the water shining, stop for a moment.

Look at the stones. Look at the foam that gathers behind a boulder. Listen to the sound, which sometimes is like a distant choir.

You may not see them. But it is good to know that, if someone were there, they would be in good company.