Geezer On The Go

While traveling Sicily, I couldn’t help but notice innumerable “pottery-like sculptures” of a distinctive man and woman. Not just in tourist shops, but in home gardens, on porches, as planters, as art, in restaurants, hotel lobbies, and in shops. Ceramic, concrete, glass … everyone seemed to have a pair. I became enchanted. There had to be a legend. What was it? I asked around. The answers were as nuanced as the images, but the gist was the same. The “Moor’s Heads” started being produced somewhere around the year 900. It represents a story of a forbidden liaison filled with passion, jealousy, betrayal, and revenge transformed to good fortune.

Originally the male’s head was brown-eyed and dark skinned, the female blue-eyed and light skinned. This has changed over time.

The Legend

During the Moor domination of Sicily a beautiful fair skinned girl was living in the Arab quarter. While tending her balcony garden, she noticed an admiring Moor below. The two fell madly in love. Then, the girl learned her lover had a family in the East and was planning to return to home to them. She became enraged, beheading him while he slept. She used his head as a vase to plant basil. Watering the basil with her tears, it grew luxuriant, emitting a fragrance so exotic people everywhere became envious. That special vase that grew amazing basil became coveted. Vases with the features of the beheaded Moor and his scorned lover, now representing luck and abundance, became prevalent throughout Sicily.

For All You Geezers on the Go, Keep on Keeping on!