A story that comes back ... an event of 1536 that still haunts us ...
The hisory of lake d'Ecchia: a legend that comes from afar and that has recently found some disturbing confirmations.
It was 1536 when a large landslide upset the slopes under the banks of Prunarolo, at the foot of Monte Pero ("reduced a part of those mountains to a crater or basin over a clayey bottom ") which was soon filled by the spring waters present in the area, giving life to Lake Ecchia.
The story is plausible as it is compatible with the nature of the land and its arrangement. In fact, these are “slope deposits” originated by gravity and surface runoff of the overlying rocks over the course of geological eras; deposits that have accumulated at the foot of the escarpments, where the slope becomes gentler, giving rise to heterogeneous and incoherent debris accumulations within which important layers of water can be collected which sometimes rise to the surface giving rise to springs. A large amount of water, following a long rainy episode, accumulated within these soils, already unstable by their nature, may have been the triggering cause that caused the landslide, and therefore determined the formation of the collection basin. ; the presence of a lot of spring water may be the reason why the lake filled up quickly and maintained over time. But if this can be the technical-scientific explanation of the lake's formation, other explanations, no less interesting, have accumulated over time and have come down to us in the form of legend.
Our grandmothers, on winter nights next to the fireplace, used to tell a very different story about the origin of Lake Ecchia! It told of an old woman who lived in a beautiful house, located exactly where the lake is now, built with squared blocks of travertine and of a group of couples of young pleasure-seekers who used to dance naked in that house, to the sound of a violin, in the nights of full moon, giving life to unbridled satanic sabbaths that horrified the sensitivity of the people of the place and in particular of the old woman who was forced to attend. Vain were the protests and warnings of the old woman who, scandalized, went on to invoke divine intervention and punishment which in this case did not take long to arrive. One evening, during yet another scandalous dance, the old woman saw the water enter the fireplace and fill the whole house in an instant, which under the immense weight sank with all those inside it into the abysses of hell. When the quiet finally returned, there was no trace of the house and a lake had formed in its place, Lake Ecchia.
Many still say that on stormy nights, when the waters of the lake are agitated by the wind and the pouring rain, you can still clearly hear the sound of the violin and the thunderous laughter of the young pleasure-seekers.
Some locals later gave birth to the legend of the non-measurability of the lake's depth, which will give life in recent times to some pseudo-scientific expeditions which we will discuss later.
Whoever has a good view, when the lake is quiet, shows under the water a tower and some walls of a village called Ecchia which submerged itself and left its name to the pond as submerging they already left theirs and Icaro and Aegean and Benaco and others with many sea breasts or lakes. Of this village you can see the battlements of the tower, the chimneys, the chimneys and even a cross and a dormer window on the roof of a house ..
"And the depth of which could never be measured or defined by sounding, since the waters flow underground and keep it filled in every season without the help of the rains and the small river that flows into it."
In fact, the legend that the lake had no bottom and that it was a kind of sinkhole that sank into the meanders of the subsoil and that therefore it was impossible to measure its depth, has found numerous supporters over time, who in addition to pointing out that the presence of limestone rocks in the subsoil makes the presence of such karst cavities plausible, as proof of the numerous events that had taken place over the centuries and that found no plausible explanation: first that the lake had completely swallowed the house of the old woman and of the young pleasure-seekers, according to others the entire old village of Ecchia.
In the following period it was told of a pair of oxen with relative cart literally disappeared in the abyss of the lake, in more recent times, during the Second World War, it was even said that an entire tank had disappeared into the lake with all its load of weapons and ammunition.
It must have been to try to solve this mystery that in the early seventies, a group of friendly and brilliant locals organized more than one expedition to try to measure the depth of the lake.
Armed with tools developed during interminable discussions at the bar, they ended up stretching a metal cable between the two shores of the lake, they applied a pulley in the center from which a rope descended with a large weight attached to one end as a sounder, while everyone held in his hand the other end thinking he would have to bear an unbearable weight as the sounder descended to the immeasurable depths of the lake.
At a voice of the expedition leader (Napoleon) who solemnly said "give rope", they began to drop the sounder: one meter, two meters, three meters ...., at this point the memories of the still living explorers become uncertain, some believe to remember that in the general consternation the rope almost immediately began to roll up on the surface of the lake in increasingly wider coils, giving account of a negligible depth, others perfectly remember a measured depth of at least 14 meters and that then the rope ended and it was not possible to proceed besides, others remember that in the most beautiful part the rope broke and the sounder reached the cart with the oxen in the depths of the lake.
But the story is not over yet, the mystery is not revealed, indeed disturbing confirmations re-emerge! Recent dredging works on the lake, carried out by the current owner, have brought to light some finds of great interest. From the depths of the lake some square blocks of sponga emerged as if by magic to testify to the presence in the lake of the remains of a house. The skeleton of an ox head also emerged together with a wooden spool which is part of the finishes of the cart.
As if that were not enough, a tank bullet also emerged!
But then they weren't legends! They were true facts, really happened. How do we put it now?
The mystery of the lake of Ecchia remains unsolved, the legends, instead of finding denials, find confirmation, the doubt is destined to last for a long time to come! There is one last singularity that must be remembered and that fits well into the mix of history, magic and legend that hovers over the place.
Given the pure quality of the spring waters that feed it, the leech (Hirudo medicinalis) still lives in the lake, this annelid which has almost disappeared and which has recently been protected as a species close to extinction, but which in the past has been the subject of much attention and use in the treatment of many diseases through the ancient practice of bloodletting.
What few people know is that throughout the 19th century Lake Ecchia supplied leeches to all pharmacies in Bologna and its province, making it the most important leech breeding in the entire Bolognese Apennines.