There are many versions of the myth of Telendos and how the face was created or what is is really. The one most well liked legend is nothing more than another tragic love story like the one of Romeo and Juliet.
In the Byzantine years around 1100 to 1200 and when Telendos was already an island and a kingdom of its own, there was a beautiful Princess living there named Pothea. Another kingdom across the channel was that of Castelli, with a small natural castle almost submerged, a little bit further from Mirties, where a Prince Andronicus lived.
A very old and deep hatred separated the two ruler families of the channel kingdoms, but as always, fate plays its own games. Princess Pothea and Prince Andronicus met and fell strongly in love very soon after their first contact. Andronicus asked for Pothea's hand in marriage from her father by sending gifts and the most pretigious matchmakers. The King of Telendos remembered the old hatred and he did not agree to the marriage.
Here the story becomes even more blurred. Facts are few, but one thing is for sure: there was a candle that needed to be transported across the channel. Perhaps the King had set a challenge for the Prince to swim across the channel to see whether he was worthy of his daughter or perhaps the Princess wanted to send a message of love to the Prince via a lit candle, carried on a small board. Or perhaps even the Princess herself wanted proof that the Prince was in love with her and had asked him to swim from Castelli to Telendos, holding the candle. The candle was not destined to last. The flame would not continue burning against even the lightest breeze.
As soon as she saw the flame disappearing, the Princess ran towards the sea and she drowned from sadness that she was not meant to be with her love. On the opposite side of the channel, when the Prince realised that the flame of the candle had died, he preferred to stay in the sea rather than to face a life without his loved one. Since then, the face of the beautiful Princess is marked on the left side of the mountain, to remind us that there is love than can live forever.
It is said also that the Prince was turned into stone and rests on the bottom of the sea, amongst seaweed, one mile from Castelli, with his eyes open so that he can keep watch forever over the Princess.
Here is where the story ends. Maybe the Princess' profile in the mountain is only a caprice of nature. Maybe the petrified Prince of stone is nothing other than an ancient statue, like the ones that continue to be discovered in the sea around the islands. Maybe is is meant to give strength to believe that a pure heart full of love can engrave a strong big rock, like the beautiful island of Telendos is.
Myth of Telendos
