Italian Holidays: Befana Festival
On January 6th Children in Italy Await Gifts Brought by a Kind Witch
Since time immemorial, on Twelfth Night a kind witch riding a broomstick fills stockings left hanging for her by Italian children, with sweets, toys and lumps of coal.
La Befana vs. Santa Claus
It was not until after World War II that Christmas trees and Santa Claus entered the Italian Christmas lore. Before that, Italian children got their festive treats only from an old lady called Befana, who comes riding a flying broomstick and leaves her gifts on Twelfth Night, or the Eve of the Epiphany.
Who is La Befana and What Does She Do?
Just like Santa Claus is the benevolent counterpart to an ogre, Befana is a kind witch. She is an ugly old hunchbacked lady with a crooked nose. She is dressed in rags and covered in soot (for she enters the houses through the chimney) and she travels straddling a twig broom and carries a self-replenishing sack (or basket) full of goodies. Candies and toys go into the stockings left hanging for her by good children, while the lumps of coal, onions or garlic are given to naughty children in punishment (though nowadays, the coal is really a lump of black rock candy).
The Way it Was
Until a few decades ago, when the majority of families were poor and certainly couldn't afford sweets and chocolate, the Befana's typical treats might have been nuts, dried figs or chestnuts, an apple or a tangerine and maybe even the occasional rag doll or wooden toy.
The Legend of La Befana
The legend goes that the Three Kings on their way to visit the Baby Jesus in Bethlehem called at La Befana's hut for hospitality. They asked if she wanted to join them, but she said she would rather not go because she was too busy. Later she changed her mind, so she hastily gathered a few gifts and tried following the Wise Men, but could not catch up with them, nor could she find the Christ Child. Eversince, each Twelfth Night she travels from house to house leaving presents for the children, just in case one of them is Baby Jesus...
Origins of La Befana: the Name and the Festival
The name Befana comes from several successive popular distortions of the Greek word 'epiphania' (meaning 'manifestation' or 'appearance'). The origins of the festival are lost in time, but the first known written record of the word dates from 1549, when a Florentine abbot used it in a simile to indicate a very ugly lady. We can only assume, therefore, that the Befana character and appearance was already widespreadly known at the time. After all, as with most Christian customs, the tradition probably has its roots in Roman and pagan festivals.
In some country areas in Italy, the Befana festival even bears an uncanny resemblance with the Celtic festival of Halloween: groups of people (children or adults) dress up as La Befana, and go knocking from door to door singing rhymes and asking for gifts of sweets. After all, just like All Hallow's Eve and the Summer Solstice, Twelfth Night was considered one of the magical nights of the year.
January 6th as a National Holiday in Italy
The Befana (Epifania) festival is a national holiday in Italy, and Italian children only go back to school from their Christmas holidays on January 7th. To get any idea of how dearly loved the festival is throughout Italy, suffice it to say that the holiday was suppressed by law in 1977, but had to be reintroduced by popular demand in 1985.
