The legend of Roland and Puigcampana
This mountain is the Puigcampana (in the area of Alacant, Valencian Country).
Can you see a vertical cut in the middle of it? People say this was made by the giant called Rotllà or Rotlà (the Catalan/Valencian name for Roland). He was a giant that had come from far away, some say he had been a general in Charlemagne's army. He fell in love with a woman from this area and they lived together happily.
But, one day, Rotllà was coming back home when he ran into a shaded figure (some say it was Death herself). Rotllà asked who it was, but the figure only replied this: "Run back to your cabin. When the last ray of sunlight stops touching her skin, she will die."
He ran all the way back to their home, where he found the woman in agony. He panicked because he didn't know what to do, and he looked at the sun to see how long he had left before the sun set behind the Puigcampana mountain. Seeing they were running out of time, he ran to the Puigcampana mountain and hit it with his sword as strongly as he could, trying to gain some more minutes with his love, creating a valley for the sun to shine through. The cut he did with his sword is still visible in the mountain.
Then, he ran back to the cabin to be with the woman, until she died in his arms. He was so upset that he picked up the piece of mountain he had destroyed and threw it away with all his strength. This broken off piece of the mountain fell in the Mediterranean sea and became the Benidorm islet:
Desperate, Rotllà took his lover in his arms and started walking towards the moon in the horizon, maybe hoping that the silver rays reflected on the sea could act similarly to the sun rays. He walked, walked, walked towards the moon, even when he reached the beach he kept walking towards the sea, with his legs under water. In some time, he reached an islet he had never seen before (the Benidorm islet). Seeing his lover was not coming back to life, he delicately laid her body to rest on this newborn islet, he hugged her, and swore that he would never leave her. Since then, Rotllà and his lover rest in this islet.
Photos by apatita.com and Diego Delso/Wikimedia Commons. I first learned this legend from the podcast Baix la Lluna. It's explained by Alfons el Blue, Coscollet, and many others.
