Legends
Probably the most popular legend about the place is the one about 40 Bulgarian girls, who preferred to tie their hair together and jump into the Black Sea instead of the prospect to be captured by the Ottomans. An obelisk dedicated to this legend is placed at the entrance to the cape, called The Gate of the 40 Maidens.
Another legend tells the story of Saint Nicholas, the patron of seamen, who was running away from the Ottomans and God was making the earth under him longer and longer, so he could escape, and the cape was formed this way. The saint was eventually captured and a chapel was built in 1993, symbolizing his grave. A dervish monastery is also said to have existed on the same place during Ottoman rule, which is thought to have preserved the relics of Muslim Bektashi saint Sarı Saltık.
A third legend is about Lysimachus, a successor of Alexander the Great, who seized the royal treasure and escaped to Kaliakra, dying in a major storm along with his whole fleet.
Read more about this topic: Kaliakra
Famous quotes containing the word legends:
“Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
“Farm boys wild to couple
With anything with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earthmounds
Of pine straw will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)
“Therefore our legends always come around to seeming legendary,
A path decorated with our comings and goings. Or so I’ve been told.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)