the good luck to be on

the good luck to be on hand when several 4000-year-old statue-menhirs (now a World Heritage Site) were excavated. She spent the next fifty years delving into the island’s past and concluded that some traditional beliefs go back to the time of Filitosa (some 8000 years ago). The most striking was the existence of a parallel ‘Other World’, a dream world of implacable destiny, where all events are played out beforehand. Our world may seem real, but we are only shadow puppets going through preordained motions. In the old days, Corsicans visited the Other World in their dreams; even Paoli, a key figure of the Enlightenment Movement, ‘saw’ his friend the mayor of Paris die on the guillotine before it happened. No one has better access to the Other World than the mazzeri, men and women born with an irresistible ‘calling’ to hunt. While they sleep, their spirits roam the maquis, and when they are about to strike their prey, they recognize the animals as people they know – who inevitably soon fall ill or die. Carrington, who interviewed several mazzeri, concluded their ‘calling’ was a last relic of Paleolithic hunting magic. As the thunder boomed, I shivered. The next day, I took the squiggly D39 through the chestnuts to see the Pisan church of Santa Maria, a little gem that made the 16km of meanderings worthwhile. In the early Middle Ages, the Pisans built 300 churches in Corsica, each a masterpiece of perfectly cut stone. They were part of Pisa’s mission to re-establish Christianity; one of the few things we know about Dark Ages, when the island was held by Saracens, is that they thought the Corsicans were all sorcerers. Santa Maria, now lost amid the holm oaks, may mark a forgotten ancient sacred place: near the church stands an extremely thin, a Giacometti statue-menhir with staring eyes, howling mouth and a sword. And a short walk away, there was the 3000-year-old Petra Frisgiata, a menhir covered with 595 unfathomable symbols. It was like many places in inner Corsica, uncanny and beautiful in its solitude. I sat on a rock and pondered the statue-menhir. The only sound was my own breathing. Even here, on an intimate scale it seemed as if nature wanted to burst out of three dimensions… but wasn’t time the fourth dimension? Maybe the fifth dimension was the Other World? I tried to channel my inner Corsican; I unfocused my eyes, trying to dissolve the present… I slowly became aware of a second figure by the statue-menhir, slowly walking towards me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Actually, I slid off the rock and went down on my bottom. He hurried over. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. He was bespectacled and middle-aged, and when my heart slowed down, I gasped: ‘I’m fine. I just thought you were a mazzeru!’ He looked at me in astonishment. ‘A mazzeru!’ he chuckled. ‘Wait until I tell my wife. No, I’m a postman, wanting you to move your car – it’s blocking the road.’ Advertise with The Good Life France Download our media pack 74 | The Good Life France The Good Life France | 75