Legend: The drunk wagoner – Pomeifré, Val Germanasca

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It was a dark night, and a wagoner was traveling through the Germanasca valley going towards Prali. The man, who was dead-drunk, was singing bad songs and laughing dumbly, falling asleep every now and then cradled by the horse pace. Near Pomeifré, he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye, and he noted that it was following him. It was a black cat running along the cart and trying to jump towards the wagoner to scar him. Swearing and cursing, the man tried hard to shoo the cat, but the critter scarred him everywhere and then disappeared into thin air.

After a few minutes, another travel companion appeared next to the wagoner: this time it was a fox, trying to jump on the cart. The man started to flail his arms and managed to shoo it.
After these strange attacks, everything seemed to return calm, and the man strayed on the trailer falling asleep on a bag. But suddenly the snort of his horse woke him up: the animal was fixed like a statue and covered by sweat, like he had a hard time. He was figuring out what happened, but the feeling of a weird presence behind him made him shout: an enormous calf was laying down right next to him! After a short moment of astonishment, he tried to push it with all his strenght to make it jump down from the cart, but in vain. Suddenly, the beast stood up and jumped down, disappearing in the night.

Before resuming his journey, the drunk wagoner swore «I will never ever take this road alone at night!».
But for him the surprises weren’t over yet. He heard a scream that gave him the heebie-jeebies and in front of him materialised a monstrous fox. It was gigantic and in the enormous jaws that pointed to him, the wagoner spotted two rows of sharp-shaped teeth. This apparition was too much for him, so he started to scream his head off until he heard somebody who was calling him. Friendly voices, at last!

Two neighbours of him were traversing the same road, and the wagoner, covered in sweat and totally overturned, told them about all those strange events. Of course, nothing happened to the other two men. And so, the wagoner grumbled a half-promise: «I’ll never let the spirits to joke on me», referring to the fact that the sprites are used to take advantage from the numbness of drunk people to play tricks on them. Honestly, I think that the only spirits in this story were the ones in his bottle!

How to get here
From Pinerolo, take SP23 towards Colle del Sestriere, then right before Villar Perosa turn on the SP166 and take SP169. Go straight towards Prali until you get to Pomeifré hamlet.