Posted on 01/04/2021 3:36:33 PM PST by nickcarraway
Italy is in red zone lockdown these last festivity days but Italians haven't forsaken a sacred ritual: the worshipping of an ugly old witch - aka the Befana. January 6 marks the Epifania (Epiphany) and it's big time celebration - only this year, it will be at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before going to bed Children hang bright socks above the fireplace, the Befana flies by during the night and the next morning kids either find black candy charcoal (if they've been naughty) or chocolates, sweets, pocket money and little gifts. For many Italians it's a more heartfelt, domestic festivity than globalized Christmas. But how did such a witchy party come to be? The Befana is a fascist prop.
In 1928 Benito Mussolini established the Epifania celebrations as a nationalist holiday. In an attempt to ban all foreign-sounding and English-related words, traditions and customs, he substituted Santa Claus with la Befana - a scary old witch with torn shoes, crooked legs, a long nose dotted with warts and a hairy upper lip who flies on a broomstick to carry gifts to kids. Happy children in return leave a pair of new shoes for the witch. She lands on rooftops and slides down the chimney just like good old Santa. But she's Italian, and even though a flying witch seems to have little in common with Italian folklore and more with the Anglo Saxon tradition, Italy has had its fair share of witches and witch trials. Remember the Inquisition, when so many alleged sorceresses were burnt at the stake?
Mussolini decided the Befana had to be a good witch and so linked her festivity to pagan rural rituals and to the biblical arrival of the Three Wise Men visiting Baby Jesus’s stable, bringing him presents.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
What is Hillary doing in Italy? LOL!
This sounds like the Italian version of Zwarte Piet in Holland.
While I don’t agree with celebrating any witch, to compare this figure with Hillary is wrong. The figure is said to give gifts to children ... Hillary by contrast would tax their parents giving their kids gifts, advance abortion so others never got any gifts, and likely have a leaker or two who dared to reveal her crimes murdered.
I don’t think they are worshiping her.
Meanwhile, in possibly more important news, the Democrat Party Cabal is still relentlessly laser-focused on grabbing total control of both the U.S. Presidency and Senate within the next 36 hours, in addition to the House it already controls.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mitt McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch Romney, and Ilhan Omar are thrilled.
You should be horse-whipped for posting a picture of that ugly old hag.
I’m 3rd gen Sicilian. You are right about the Nativities.
BUT no one beats the Philippines at Christmas AND New Year’s. Starting November, you will see MERRY CHRISTMAS or “MALIGAYANG PASKO” at almost EVERY window, commercial or residential. No woke nor pc nonsense. Midnight mass is celebrated and it’s tradition to eat afterwards. NEW YEAR’s..people just blow up firecrackers in 10 hours straight.
And most of the Christians are highly secularized, and don't have any meaningful allegiance to Christianity.
You mean hillary moved to Italy?
The magazine has lost all credibility by saying that Italians “worship “ this.
black candy charcoal (if they’ve been naughty)
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What? Back in the day it was real coal - middle bad got anthracite (hard coal) really bad got bituminous (soft coal) which smeared all over the unlucky recipient who touched it. This so called witch is a fraud obviously, no real which would hand out candy in place of the real thing - what lesson does that teach?
LOL!
Gaaaahhhh!!!
Very serpent-like
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