After sending the ships back so that none of his men would be able to seek refuge in them, he went to attack Messina. Finding it undefended—for its defenders had been killed as a result of Roger's earlier attack—he [Roger I d’Hauteville] captured the city and stormed its towers and ramparts, killing all those whom he found within, except those who managed to flee to the Palermitan ships. This occurred in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 106[1].
Among those who tried to flee was a certain youth, one of the most noble among the citizens of Messina, who had a very beautiful sister whom he tried to take with him as he fled. But the girl, a slight young woman, weak by nature and unaccustomed to such effort, began to lose heart out of fear and the unaccustomed difficulty of their course. The brother tenderly encouraged her to flee, but when his words had no effect and he saw that she was physically exhausted, he fell upon her with his own sword and killed her so that she would not have to live among the Normans and be corrupted by any of them. Although he was steeped in tears—his sister being so sweet and his only one—he chose to become her murderer and to mourn her death rather than to have her become a prevaricator of their law and be defiled by someone who did not live according to it.”
Goffredo Malaterra, The Deeds Of Count Roger Of Calabria And Sicily And Of His Brother Duke Robert Guiscard, p.91
Folklore gave a name to these unfortunate and unnamed siblings: Ciafar and Iras. It also provided them of a background. According to tradition they were the children of an alleged Emir of Córdoba, who found themselves admist the chaos of the Norman conquest of Sicily. If they really existed and that was their name and story, we won’t ever know.
