Sicilian Restaurant Legend has it that in the city of Palermo, particularly in the Arab quarter al-Hâlisah (now known as "Kalsa"), there lived, around the year 1100, a young maiden. The maiden spent her days inside her sumptuous palace, tending to her plants and flowers. One day, a young and charming Moor passed beneath the maiden's balcony. A glance was enough to spark a love at first sight. Alas, the maiden was unaware that the Moor she had fallen in love with was married and had children in the distant lands of the East, where he would soon return. The maiden, blinded by love and jealousy, waited for nightfall, and while the young man slept, she cut off his head so that she could keep him with her always. She made a vase out of it, in which she planted and watered her plants and flowers with her tears. Passers-by, seeing how lush plants grew in these peculiar Moorish head-shaped vases, asked for clay vases with the same features to be handmade.
