Lucilla and the well
Summary of the fairy tale ‘Lucilla and the Well
Lucilla is a young girl living in a small village affected by a long drought. One day, while looking for water, she hears a voice coming from an old abandoned well. The voice promises her abundant water if she will help him find his “soul”. Lucilla, intrigued and compassionate, embarks on an initiatory journey of symbolic trials (encounters with talking animals, natural enigmas, inner obstacles). In the end, she realises that the soul of the well is the memory of the village: the forgotten stories, the lost rituals, the bonds between people. When he returns these elements to the well, water flows again, and with it life. Listen to Michele Neri’s viva voce from here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/lucilla-ed-il-pozzo–66228394
🧭 Anthropological and ethnographic commentary
1. The figure of the well as a cultural symbol
In the anthropological context, the well is often a symbol of life, knowledge and collective depth. It is a gathering place not only of water, but of narratives and memory. In many traditional cultures, the well represents access to the underground (unconscious, spiritual, ancestral) world. In this fable, the personified well calls for the recovery of its “soul”, emphasising how the loss of cultural memory (songs, myths, rituals) leads to symbolic drought: the loss of meaning.
2. The ecological crisis as a reflection of the cultural crisis
The link between drought and the forgetting of traditions is clear: nature reflects the state of the collective soul. In cultural anthropology, we often speak of “sacred ecology” – the idea that nature and culture are intertwined. The return of water only occurs when Lucilla reintegrates lost knowledge and values. This recalls concepts from indigenous cultures where the health of the environment is directly linked to respect for rituals and oral transmission.
3. Lucilla as the “liminal” figure
Lucilla represents the liminal individual, typical of rites of passage (Van Gennep, Turner): young, not yet fully integrated into the adult world, she goes through trials that transform her. Her journey is a path of initiation that makes her a mediator between past and present, between nature and culture, between forgetfulness and memory.
4. The fairy tale as ethnographic device
From an ethnographic point of view, the fairy tale acts as a repository of implicit knowledge: it describes social relations, beliefs, symbolic systems. The figure of the well that “speaks” and “remembers” recalls the role of oral narration in traditional societies: to preserve, to instruct, to construct identity. Lucilla is not just a heroine, but a keeper of cultural memory, similar to the African shaman or griot.
🔍 Conclusion
Lucilla and the well can be read as an allegory of the loss and recovery of collective memory. Anthropologically, it reveals a tension between modernity (drought, forgetfulness, disintegration) and tradition (return of water, reconstruction of community). The fairy tale reminds us that the vitality of a culture depends on its ability to preserve and renew its symbolic ties with the land, history and others.
If you are interested, I can also compare it with similar fairy tales from other cultures or analyse its symbolic language in detail. Would you like to go deeper?