Have you ever wondered why there's such a Sicilian tradition of making majolica plant pots? Legend has it that in the Kalsa, Palermo's "Arab" neighborhood, during the Arab domination around the year 1000, in one of these narrow, smelly streets (the Arab kasbah), lived a beautiful young girl with rosy skin, comparable to peach blossoms at their peak, and a beautiful pair of eyes that seemed to reflect the beautiful sea of the Gulf of Palermo. Shut up at home, she spent her days cultivating and tending the plants in her garden. One day, a young Arab happened to be passing by. He saw the beautiful girl busy tending the plants, fell in love with her, and decided he wanted her forever.
Without hesitation, he entered the girl's house and declared his love. The girl, touched by his feelings, reciprocated the young man's love, but when she learned that the Arab wanted to take her with him to return to his lands and increase his harem, she counter-proposed that he should stay in Palermo, abandoning the harem and staying with her forever. Having received a negative response, she waited until nightfall and killed him in his sleep.
She cut off his head and made a vase with it, planting basil in it and displaying it in the lush garden. The Arab, unable to "leave," remained with her forever, and the basil grew lush and aroused the envy of the neighborhood's residents, who, not to be outdone, had terracotta vases shaped like "Moor's heads" made for themselves. But the girl who had been convicted of murder was subjected to the same punishment, so the head of the beautiful Palermitan woman also became a model for the execution of the city's potters!
