MATSYA

Inspiration

One day, near the coast of Tripoli, appeared a beautiful girl adorned with jewels on a great black fish. The son of the Sultan came down from Gharyan to see her. She told him she came from an island, Malta, and, having been promised her liberty would be respected, she advanced down one of the streams.

But a net was thrown to cut off her retreat; therefore she continued upstream pursued by the crowd and the Sultan’s son; then, having arrived at the foot of the mountain near the source, she called on God. An abyss opened and she was engulfed with the river and the fish, and ever since the waters have disappeared. Legend has it that seventy thousand stones were thrown in to find the water – not the waters of the sources that now form a marvellous underwater source, but those of rain, symbol of life.