The forest has always been a source of inspiration for popular imagination; goblins, gnomes, fairies, witches and wizards, spirits and other strange beings have traditionally populated our places. Some of these characters had a nice and positive aspect, others instead were absolutely negative and bad, thus feeding the so-called "fears".
Many scholars have delved into legendary aspects linked to the popular traditions of these valleys. Among them, Prof. Oscar Guidi, has collected a testimony on Fosciandora that tells how elderly people, in order to scare children, said that there was the Ossongamba. Described as a sort of beast, he would kidnap children. It was a skinny, slim spirit, with a frightening image. Other authors define the Ossongamba as a Lemur, also reported in Versilia, with a thin, pale and ghostly appearance, probably with reference to the spirits of the dead in the Latin mythological-religious world.
But the main symbol of imagination in Garfagnana is probably the Buffardello, a kind of malicious, slightly prankster elf, a close relative of Lucca's Linchetto. Some describe him as a child, others as an old man with a white beard, but always dressed in red. His favourite mischief was to inextricably entwine beast's tails and manes or to pull blankets and covers and, sitting on sleeping people's chests, causing them bad nightmares. According to popular tradition, to get rid of the goblin's mischief, you had to eat while sitting at the toilet, so that the disgusted goblin will never be seen again. At other times, he manifests himself in the form of a gust of wind, which enjoys disrupting everything.
