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 ...
Must be related to James Carville.
Was that really necessary?
Oh no, not another Madonna comeback!?
Something ain’t right about that woman. Yes, I know who she is (Rosa DeLauro - Communist-CT).
I thought it was Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction.
I was going to post a Bela Abzug, but Red Rosa won.
My brother is married to a Filipina and we spent one Christmas and New Year’s there. It’s a majority Christian nation and new year’s..Filipinos from age 10 to 90 throw firecrackers the size of pizza boxes to the street and not even thinking of these blowing their hands off was something else LOL.
Our minds went down the same dark path....
Didn’t Mussolini start the tradition of hanging around a gas station?
That’s right; I forgot about that. She would also insist that it should only be for children of illegal aliens.
You really had to stick your neck out on that one, didn’t you? :)
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