The Azurine Fairy had been given the task of drawing the shoreline. All she had to do was step forward with her graceful stride: as her bare feet made contact, the water and the land parted obediently and definitively behind her.
And so it was that she had begun with a masterstroke by endowing Provence with the pearl that would later be known as the Côte d’Azur. She had just completed her masterpiece by adding a whole series of new jewels: the Bay of Bandol, the beach at Les Lecques, the Gulf of Amour, the Calanques of Cassis, as well as the harbour and the tiny cove that would one day make the fortune of Marseille. And now she was resting, her head turned skywards and her feet stretched northwards. Then the giant Alpus took off his shoes and lay down against her, and only the twinkling stars and the brand new moon witnessed what had happened during the night.
Alpus wakes up
In the early hours of the morning, Alpus was the first to wake. He put on his boots, but before leaving the sleeping beauty, he stroked her body one last time with his mud-caked hands, from her forehead to the tips of her toes…
Once he was on his feet, he shook off his boots one by one: the first lump went on to form the voluminous mamelon known as Ruissatel, but as it travelled along, it detached a section which, when it landed, took the shape of a Bec Cornu; the second also broke up into several sections which gave rise to Taoumé, Tête Rouge and Tête Ronde respectively.
Then he walked away, without waiting forAzurineto wake up… But Azurine was never to wake up. With the first rays of the sun, the mud that had coated her skin under the giant’s caresses began to dry, then to harden. And the unfortunate woman, suddenly petrified, found herself forever captive to this gangue deposited in an act of love. Left to their own devices, the land and water created the shapeless, marshy coastline that stretches to the west of Marseille.
The unfortunate fairy
This is why, at dusk, the locals sometimes gaze longingly at the crest of the Étoile, where for thousands of years the ill-fated fairy has lain like a mummy. The graceful lines of her body can be clearly seen against the serene sky: the fine profile of her face (the summit of Garlaban), the touching curve of her breast (the Plan de l’Aigle), and extending all the way to the tip of the “Marseillais” which, over there, at the end of the chain, represents her feet,
This is not my story; for generations this legend has been the stuff of winter evenings spent by the hearth in our beautiful region, and certainly beyond.
