Paroldo

The arms of Paroldo show a gold castle walled in black, with three towers, the middle one taller and wider, and above them three bezants. The castle was real: it stood on the highest hill, and its wall also enclosed the chapel of San Sebastiano, the oldest church in the village, held to go back to the tenth century. The fief belonged to the Del Carretto, after the break-up of the old lordship of the marquises of Vasto, and among the saints in the recovered frescoes are that family's cardinal insignia.

Paroldo, though, is known above all for its masche, the Piedmontese word for witches. The local ones were always called good: women credited with curing skin complaints through prayers and signs traced in the air, who passed the gift from woman to woman inside the same family. For centuries the through roads missed the village, and that isolation helped keep the tradition alive.