Il-Maqluba
Some of the legends created and
fabricated by the minds of the
uneducated minds of yesteryear
were mainly used as explanations
of phenomena happening around
them. One such phenomenon was
the collapsing of a sinkhole in Qrendi,
creating a massive crater that the
Maltese of the time had no idea how
to explain. What was the immense
hole in the ground? What made it
collapse? And most importantly, how
did the chapel of St Matthew remain
untarnished, being only metres away
from the sinkhole? Old Maltese legend
states that the site of ‘Il-Maqluba’, as
the sinkhole is called (meaning ‘the
upturned’) had been a village in ancient
times, a village abounding with evil and
sin. The common belief was that God
punished the villagers by wiping their
traces off the earth, while leaving a
giant crater behind. Both crater and
chapel still stand to this day, and can
easily be visited while in Qrendi.
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