There are many legends in this country.

One of them concerns the bridge in Arta, a small city in northern Greece.

Legend has it that in the early 15nth century, a merchant found gold in some oil pots he had bought from Saracen pirates, and, with his new-found wealth, decided to build a bridge in his hometown, and employed 1300 builders, 45 skilled workmen and 60 apprentices.

However, whatever work was done during the day, at night it would be mysteriously undone.

Then, one day a bird flew onto the bridge and said: until you burry a person into the bridge, the construction will never end. “And don’t search for an orphan, or even a stranger passing by,” the bird said. “You must use the beautiful wife of the foreman of the skilled workmen.”

When the foreman heard it, he was very sad, but he sent the bird to bring his lady. “Tell her to come as late as she can”, he said.

But the bird told her the opposite: “Hurry, hurry, get dressed . . . you must go to the bridge of Arta.”

When he saw her approach, the foreman’s heart broke, as she was smiling and waving at everyone from far away. When she came up closer she asked why her husband was so sad. The workers told her that her husband’s ring had fallen into the first arch of the bridge and nobody could get it out.

The wife offered to climb in, but when she couldn’t find the ring, she called for them to lift her up.

Instead, they continued the construction and built her into the bridge. As they were doing so, the wife put a curse for anyone that passes the bridge to fall off it:  “As the clove leaves shake, may this bridge shake, too. As the leaves fall from the trees, may the passers-by fall too.”

But, at the end, because she had a brother on foreign soils that perhaps one day would cross this bridge, she took her curse back and turned it into a blessing, for the bridge to be as “steady as the wild mountains” and passers-by as safe as “wild birds in flight”.

This is the legend, but there is also History. And history records that the legend was probably created during the Turkish occupation when the Turkish army had to cross this area, and needed the locals to help build the bridge.

Apparently, many people offered to help build the bridge in order to gain favour with the Turks. But, when the locals found out that it would be used to defeat their own people, they returned at night and tore down what they themselves had built during the day. When the Turks asked why this work was taking so long, the people said the place was haunted, believing that the Turks would never cross it.

Instead, the Turks executed the foreman and his wife.

The bridge was finally completed, accompanied by the curses of the Greeks – curses that, after the revolution of 1821, were turned into blessings.

Apart from the history that perhaps hides behind a legend, there is also gossip.

And gossip says that the foreman’s wife was cheating on him and the whole town knew it, so he invented the entire story. It was the foreman himself who snuck in at night and undid all of the day’s work. He invented the curse and the haunting spirit of the bridge in order to take vengeance against his unfaithful wife and all her lovers.

True or false who knows…

“What’s the point of this entire story?”

My point is very clear. It’s about all the current “bridges of Arta”.

Like Saint Petros’ Temple near the Port . . .  Pananion Hospital on N. Plastira’s Avenue . . . the old American base in Gournes . . . all the never-ending road-works on our streets.

Work that goes on for years on end . . . as it takes one step forward and 20 steps backwards no matter what legend, history or gossip hides behind them.