- coming soon -
About swordfish national and regional literature gave us several descriptions about its peculiar shape and its sword (it seems to stun smaller fishes when it meets a shoal); but also about the way to catch it by harpoon). By the way, it is told that Sicilian fishers, when they sight a swordfish, they go up slowly with their boat and whisper something like a magic formula in an ancient Greek language which today is actually incomprehensible. Here are the words: paenu pale/ pale castagneta/ mancata stigneta/ prò nastu vardu pressa da visu, e da terra.
And the fish, enchanted, waits there until fishers catch it. In truth, if the fish really heard the words (in dialect or Italian), he would plunge into the sea and disappear. In dialect it is called pisci-spata; spatu; puddicinéddu; the last one is generally used for younger swordfishes that are so funny and joyful; but also for some behaviours of older swordfishes during sexual approaching.
Swordfish is caught from April to September, when shoals of swordfishes reach the strait of Messina, probably coming from Sargasso Sea: this habit is described throughout centuries by ancient Greek and Latin writers. The central part of swordfish (and tunny too) has a triangular shape and is called “surra, ventresca di prima”; the second part is called “ventresca”.
