Witches, vampires, historic aliens—you may discover all of them in Malta

On Malta’s southeastern shore, within the village of Marsaxlokk, fishermen haul the day’s catch onto the harbourfront — iridescent parrotfish; mahi-mahi shimmering inexperienced and gold; octopus arms spilling from the tops of clay pots. The scent of espresso flavoured with chicory and cloves carries on the ocean breeze from harbourside cafes, the place folks munch pastizzi (pastry crammed with curried peas) and stare upon fishing boats bobbing within the harbour.

And the boats gaze again at them. These little picket vessels, trying pharaonic of their stripes of yellow and blue, are painted on the helm with pairs of hooded eyes, which resemble one thing from an Ancient Egyptian papyrus.

“The Eye of Horus,” explains my information, Audrey Bartolo, as we stand on the waterfront. “Or Osiris, depending on who you ask.” These boats are often known as luzzijiet, Audrey explains, and their markings are believed to guard fisherfolk from the evil eye whereas they’re out at sea. “It came from the Phoenicians, who liked to copy the Egyptians.”

Malta’s coast, cities and countryside are underlain with tales like these. They weave collectively to create a twilight realm of fable and folklore, unseen besides to these on the lookout for it, lurking beneath the nation’s sunny facade. I’ve enlisted Audrey, a information and conventional Maltese folks singer with coal-black hair and olive pores and skin, to information me by way of the folkloric panorama of this tiny archipelago, the smallest island nation within the Mediterranean Sea. Despite its measurement, it’s a spot of many mysteries.

Fisherfolk complement their revenue by providing journeys of their luzzijiet across the Maltese shoreline, so Audrey and I climb right into a ready boat and the fisherman putt-putt-putts the motor into life. As the boat departs the harbour, we gaze upon the face Malta would have first introduced to the succession of outsiders — Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, crusading knights, colonising Brits — who occupied these islands over the centuries. The shoreline is shaped from blonde limestone, riddled with coves and caves bridged by rock arches. After 20 minutes, we attain the Blue Grotto, named for the startling sapphire hue of its water, and lengthy stated to harbour legendary creatures. “Mermaids were believed to live here, and sirens, who called seafarers to shipwreck,” says Audrey. The Maltese shoreline has a protracted affiliation with classical mythology. Further north, on the coast of Gozo, is Calypso’s Cave, the place Odysseus was held captive for seven years by the nymph in Homer’s The Odyssey.

Our boatman returns us to the harbour and after a seafood lunch, we make the 20-minute drive to Valletta, Malta’s capital, the place the National Museum of Archaeology ought to give me some background on the nation’s historic mysteries. Chief amongst them are the megalithic temples that scatter the panorama, older than Stonehenge and the pyramids, and created by an enigmatic civilisation recognized merely because the Temple Builders. Elsewhere, the countryside is etched with unusual, deep grooves often known as cart ruts, made for an unknown goal at an unknown time. One such website, Misrah Ghar il-Kbir, is dubbed Clapham Junction for its weaving community of tracks which, when seen from above, resemble a busy railway station.

Offshore, the thriller solely deepens — the ruins of a supposed sunken temple, Ġebel ġol-Baħar, had been recognized off the coast of St Julian’s in 1999 by Hubert Zeitlmair, a retired property investor who claimed to have been guided to the ruins by historic aliens. Clearly, one thing about Malta invitations the human creativeness to superimpose wild theories onto the nation’s pure and archaeological landscapes. The streets of the capital usually are not immune. “We have a Valletta vampire,” Audrey whispers as we stroll by way of the museum — stated to be Grand Master Pinto, who dominated the Knights of Malta from 1741-1773, lived a scandalous and opulent life and died on the grand outdated age of 92.

At the guts of the museum are reveals of collectible figurines unearthed at Malta’s historic websites — the one clue as to the tradition of the individuals who constructed them. The most well-known, often known as the Sleeping Lady of Malta, sits earlier than us in a glass case. It’s simply 5 inches lengthy and depicts a feminine determine, mendacity on her aspect and sporting a pleated skirt; it was unearthed on the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, a 5,000-year-old underground burial chamber close to Valletta. Hundreds of comparable figures have been found throughout Malta’s megalithic websites, a lot of them seemingly feminine. Beginning within the Seventies, on the peak of second-wave feminism, this led to Malta turning into a focus for adherents to the goddess motion, a pagan revivalist faith centred on worship of the divine female. There’s no proof, past the collectible figurines themselves, concerning the unique use of the temples, however that ambiguity is what makes Malta so ripe for people tales and hypothesis. “When you don’t have evidence,” says Audrey, “theories emerge.”

The following morning, eager to find extra of Malta’s mysterious locations, we set again out throughout the south of the island, previous fields of prickly pear bordered by dry-stone partitions, and Audrey tells me among the folks tales that haunted her goals as a toddler rising up. Il-Belliegħa, a serpentine monster stated to stay in darkish, dank locations, discouraged youngsters from enjoying close to deep wells. Il-Ħares, in the meantime, was a mercurial, shapeshifting ghost, generally benevolent and generally terrifying, just like the Arabian djinn — proof, as is the Arabic-influenced island language, of Malta’s place on the assembly level of the Christian and Islamic worlds.

After simply 25 minutes, we’ve already crossed most of southern Malta from east to west, and arrive on the sleepy city of Qrendi. We get out of the automobile beside the Church of St Matthew, the place outdated males sit within the shade of carob timber, watching the world go by as the intense morning melts right into a scorching afternoon. A younger little one loses management of his bike and virtually crashes into the group of males, who sternly admonish him. “The story goes that St Paul is said to have rid Malta of poisonous snakes,” says Audrey, as we watch the scene unfold. “He removed the venom from their fangs and put it onto our grandparents’ tongues.”

Tradition has it that St Paul was shipwrecked on Malta whereas travelling from Jerusalem to Rome within the first century CE, bringing Christianity to the islands with him. “But the minute he set sail again,” says Audrey, “we converted back to paganism straight away.” In the next centuries, Malta was colonised by Byzantines after which Muslim Aghlabids from North Africa, earlier than finally returning to Christian rule with the Norman conquest within the eleventh century.

Nowadays, greater than 80% of the inhabitants determine as Roman Catholic, and there are 359 church buildings in Malta — multiple per sq. kilometre, one of many highest concentrations on the planet. Even so, it’s laborious to shake the sensation that Malta’s paganism remains to be very a lot current.

As if by means of proof, a determine emerges from the shadow of the timber ­— a girl with inexperienced hair beneath a black conical hat, purple shades with bat decorations, a pentacle tattoo and a T-shirt bearing the slogan ‘Witch’. Rosalind Dougall, proprietor of the Fata Morgana magic store, is a member of a small however thriving pagan neighborhood, a lot of whom are impressed by the mysterious temples and folks tales related to Malta’s historic folks.

Rosalind leads us behind the church — right here, the land all of a sudden provides method to a large sinkhole, 300 metres round and 40 metres deep. As we descend the rock-cut steps into the abyss, we enter a misplaced world — the air is cool, the rocky partitions are lined in laurel shrubs and sandarac timber, and midnight-blue rock thrushes whistle their flute-like tune from crevices within the gentle stone.

“They call this place Il-Maqluba, the upside down’,” says Rosalind. “The story goes that the villagers were living in sin, so God swallowed up the land beneath their feet.” Angels carried the land offshore, the place it’s now a strikingly flat-topped island often known as Filfla, sitting simply past the storied Blue Grotto. As we take within the peaceable, otherworldly ambiance, Rosalind tells me extra folks tales that replicate the intermingling of Malta’s pagan and Christian spirits. “In Wied Speranza in Mosta, a young girl took refuge in a cave while being pursued by pirates. She prayed to the Virgin Mary, who sent a giant spider to weave a web over the cave’s entrance, keeping the girl hidden away.” A church now stands on the spot of this supposed miracle.

“These stories have been transmitted orally over time, and for a long period, the people telling those stories have been Catholics,” says Rosalind. “So there’s always a Christian element injected somewhere — a saint or another biblical character.”

There is one factor, nevertheless, that the church can’t declare credit score for — Malta’s megalithic temples and burial chambers, constructed some 3,000 years earlier than the delivery of Jesus. For some Maltese pagans, Malta’s temple websites have turn out to be ritual areas, and figures just like the Sleeping Lady positioned as native deities. “If you’re a pagan in Britain, you have the Celtic gods; if you’re Norwegian, you’ve got the Nordic deities,” says Rosalind. “We don’t really have a Maltese pantheon, so people make their own choices.”

Rosalind leaves us to make preparations for her store’s stall at a forthcoming gothic music pageant. “It’s great,” she says. “I can whip out a statue of Baphomet [an occult idol] and no one bats an eyelid.” We proceed on our journey.

My and Audrey’s final vacation spot is the oldest of Malta’s historic temples, Ġgantija, which sits within the nation’s far north, on the island of Gozo. First, although, we’re spending the afternoon at Ta’ Cicivetta Farm, an agrotourism venture close to the city of Rabat, half an hour’s drive north west of Qrendi.

Little mud devils swirl round our wheels as we pull up on the finish of the tough farm observe. Malta’s summers are scorching and dry, however so far as the attention can see are fields of gold — the yellow flowers of untamed fennel, set ablaze by the softening solar, their scent of anise carried in the direction of me on a heat breeze. On the hill above the valley stands the grand outdated metropolis of Rabat, its blood red-domed church and honeyed-stone citadel standing proud, a fortified fort city in miniature. This is Malta — mighty on a micro scale.

Ta’ Cicivetta lays on countryside dinners, served within the fields to the accompaniment of Maltese folks music. On the invoice this night is Audrey’s group, the Ta’ Verna Folk Band — three males well wearing conventional black waistcoats, white shirts and black flat caps. The band chief, George Bonello, performs accordion and żafżafa (a drum hooked up to a stick), which he performs by rubbing the stick to a moist sponge. The friction creates a deep, growling, virtually animal sound. The line-up is accomplished by a mandolin participant and a guitarist. Audrey is lead singer, however she sits out tonight.

“There’s a big Sicilian influence on Maltese folk music,” says George, “but Maltese music is very joyful — that’s what characterises it. And a lot of the singing is improvised.” The focus is on witty one-liners, typically exchanged between singers as a duel. “Like a rap battle,” he says.

The guitarist, an aged man with no enamel save for a silver fang protruding from every nook of his mouth, begins to sing. Verses are ad-libbed in Maltese and English providing up alternative couplets like ‘Sugar is too sweet/Now I have no teeth’. Traditional Maltese folks singing is named għana, and for hundreds of years has been the medium by way of which folks tales had been transmitted, historically sung by ladies whereas they labored within the fields.

Folk music isn’t the one a part of Maltese life influenced by neighbouring cultures and people of its many colonists over the centuries, most lately the British. Visitors to Valletta are sometimes struck by the capital’s proliferation of gleaming crimson phone containers, of the sort as soon as generally discovered on British excessive streets. Malta’s British connection generally presents itself in different sudden methods, not least in its delicacies. “A popular comfort food is spaghetti with cheese and Bovril,” says Audrey, barely containing her disgust. Thankfully, tonight’s menu is extra historically Maltese, and we feast on rabbit meat marinated in white wine the temples are half-ruined stacks of rugged limestone boulders, smoothed by island winds and bleached bone-white by hundreds of years of Mediterranean solar. They had been in-built 3600 BCE, making them the second-oldest surviving buildings on the planet after the Göbekli Tepe archaeological website in Türkiye.

“The wheel wasn’t even invented yet,” says Audrey, marvelling on the ingenuity of the temple’s builders. When the Great Pyramid of Khufu was being in-built Giza, Ġgantija had already been in use for 1,000 years, its unique goal, maybe, already misplaced to historical past. Like Malta’s different temples, statuettes of voluptuous figures had been discovered right here. Even as we speak, when seen from above, the temples’ flooring plan resembles an analogous exaggerated female kind. This has led to theories of a fertility cult being practised right here. Gozitan folklore speaks of a giantess named Sansuna who, having grown enormous on Gozo’s wealthy bounty of fava beans and honey, carried these rocks right here and constructed the temples herself (Ġgantija means place of giants).

The reference to female energy abides as we speak. Audrey reveals me across the ruins, the place altars bear proof of historic animal sacrifice — cattle and sheep bones had been discovered beside them, together with ‘libation holes’ by way of which blood was poured as an providing. We see teams of girls, some linking arms, others standing with their eyes closed, meditating in quiet communion with the stones. “They’re worshipping the Goddess,” says Audrey. “Goddess tours come here from all over — Australia, the US. But they see it from a spiritual rather than archaeological point of view. They choose to believe that all the statuettes are feminine, when actually some are clearly male, and many are ambiguous.”

There’s a lot that’s nonetheless not understood about Malta — however in its thriller lies its energy. Its countryside, coves and ruined temples are a clean canvas onto which, within the absence of concrete info, folks venture their gods and monsters, fears and folks tales. “Until we find evidence to the contrary,” says Audrey, “people can believe whatever they wish.”