An Italian Christmas Legend
(from: santasletterbox.net/befana.html)It is a great mistake to think that there are no fairies in Italy, and one of the nicest is called La Befana, and she belongs to Christmas just like the holly and mistletoe and snowmen. She comes only once a year as the Three Kings do, and she is not young and beautiful, but old and bent and more like a witch than a fairy. In fact, before people realized how kind she was, they thought of her as a wicked witch and rang bells made of earthenware and blew glass trumpets to frighten her away. But all this has been forgotten now, and anyhow, the Befana never deserved it as her story will show.
Click here for her story...(excerpt below)
... the Befana's long journey began, and at first it took her all over the earth and into every corner of the world; she crossed the great mountain ranges, and deserts and oceans; she forded rivers and passed through forests. And so she saw all the beauty God had created, and met many strange animals, and she found that they too knew of the Baby King. As to men, she soon gave up asking them anything for they only contradicted each other, but she thought that if she went steadily to every child, in the end she was bound to find that one baby for whom she was searching. And remembering the Kings and their long caravan of pack mules laden with gifts, she got an old sack and filled it with every kind of thing that children most enjoy; only I think there must have been something magical about that sack, for though the Befana is still traveling, it never gets too heavy or full for her to carry, and yet she never gets to the bottom or runs short of toys.
Gradually Italy came to be her special country for further north she found Saint Nicholas was busy looking after children's Christmas presents, and he called himself Santa Claus and dressed up like a grandfather snowman for the occasion; and though he was a saint, he was very annoyed when he found the Befana who was reputed to be a witch trespassing on his ground, so he promptly sent her away, promising that when he found the Christ Child he would let her know. However Saint Nicholas had so much to do in his own country that he never got to Italy, so there the Befana had the field all to herself, and every year just after Christmas she goes the rounds of the children from the Alps to Sicily, slipping into their nurseries when they are asleep and she always leaves them a present. Only if they have been naughty, then she leaves a little bit of coal too just to show that she knows all about their misdemeanors.
And isn't it a proof of how stupid men can be, that in spite of the Befana's obvious good will, they should ever have thought her to be a wicked witch and threatened children that she would come and carry them off as though she had been the boogeyman. Now I am glad to say, people have grown wiser and little boys no longer sing rude songs about her, and the earthenware bells and glass trumpets that used to be made to frighten her away have all been forgotten....
... the Befana's long journey began, and at first it took her all over the earth and into every corner of the world; she crossed the great mountain ranges, and deserts and oceans; she forded rivers and passed through forests. And so she saw all the beauty God had created, and met many strange animals, and she found that they too knew of the Baby King. As to men, she soon gave up asking them anything for they only contradicted each other, but she thought that if she went steadily to every child, in the end she was bound to find that one baby for whom she was searching. And remembering the Kings and their long caravan of pack mules laden with gifts, she got an old sack and filled it with every kind of thing that children most enjoy; only I think there must have been something magical about that sack, for though the Befana is still traveling, it never gets too heavy or full for her to carry, and yet she never gets to the bottom or runs short of toys.
Gradually Italy came to be her special country for further north she found Saint Nicholas was busy looking after children's Christmas presents, and he called himself Santa Claus and dressed up like a grandfather snowman for the occasion; and though he was a saint, he was very annoyed when he found the Befana who was reputed to be a witch trespassing on his ground, so he promptly sent her away, promising that when he found the Christ Child he would let her know. However Saint Nicholas had so much to do in his own country that he never got to Italy, so there the Befana had the field all to herself, and every year just after Christmas she goes the rounds of the children from the Alps to Sicily, slipping into their nurseries when they are asleep and she always leaves them a present. Only if they have been naughty, then she leaves a little bit of coal too just to show that she knows all about their misdemeanors.
And isn't it a proof of how stupid men can be, that in spite of the Befana's obvious good will, they should ever have thought her to be a wicked witch and threatened children that she would come and carry them off as though she had been the boogeyman. Now I am glad to say, people have grown wiser and little boys no longer sing rude songs about her, and the earthenware bells and glass trumpets that used to be made to frighten her away have all been forgotten....