Dixi goes to a party to celebrate spring, where his hungry little tummy gets plenty of attention. In Italian, a hungry tummy growls, using the verb "brontolare." Both a "growl" and a "brontolio" are onomatopoeic.

La luna di traverso (the moon on its side) is a way of saying "bad mood." Dixi got up on the wrong side of the bed, but being a magical little elephant, he has the actual sidelong moon on his hands. What to do?

Dixi toys with the idea of being a bear. That's before he realizes that it would mean missing out on his daily breakfast cookies.

Dixieland is left in the dark because Mister Sun has overslept. It's up to Dixi to go and wake him up. The vocabulary review features third person verbs in the passato remoto tense.

Giuseppe Pitrè was an ethnologist who collected documents pertaining to Sicily and its culture and traditions. His work is the basis for this documentary, which unites live footage, drawings, and archival documents.

We learn about Pitrè's life, and his relationship to the sea.

In this segment, we see some swordfish harpoon fishing, and hear an old Sicilian legend about a boy named Nicola who could stay underwater for a very long time.

Pitrè's life was marked by a sort of travelling storyteller tradition in his family. In those days, a cuntastorie (storyteller) would go around to all the piazzas and tell stories, and people would pay to hear them.

This segment focuses on an actor who retells and acts out stories from Sicily's past, speaking in Sicilian dialect. He uses the Pitrè Museum as a source for material. The museum houses a manuscript with over 4,000 Sicilian proverbs, just one of the many volumes of Sicilian ethnographic material.

Pitrè's mission was to conserve and safeguard the traditions of his people, the Sicilians, and to keep the roots alive. Looking at religious traditions is one important way to do this.

Saint Rosalia (1130–1166), recognized by her crown of roses, is Palermo's patron saint. The video shows the July 14 parade in honor of the saint, and a young man who credits his cure from a grave illness to Saint Rosalia.

The segment concentrates on the richness of the Sicilian dialect, a dialect which is less and less spoken. The narrator interviews two poets who recite their works in Sicilian, providing insights into the language.

Giuseppe Pitrè received his degree in medicine in 1865. His patients, among Palermo's poorest, provided him with a wealth of ethnographic material.

A woman performs a traditional Sicilian ritual involving the sticking of pins into an onion, accompanied by prayers, in order to bring back the boyfriend of her suppliant.

Giuseppe Pitrè loved attending performances of chivalric folk plays in Palermo. This segment follows a marionette player at Palermo's Opera dei Pupi, the same theater where Pitrè went to see folk epics.