Why my employer, "The Big Rock Herald", sent me to Italy to report on the Befana requires an explanation. I had been a correspondent in Baghdad for a year. For a year I transcribed for my newspaper the lies distributed by the Army PR Office and endorsed wholeheartedly by the Big Rock Herald and the corporate media. But even liars can tire of lying. In November I almost witnessed a family of 5 little girls and their mother wiped out by a round from a US tank – the massacre was reported in the newspapers, but in small print and hidden among other news.

That evening I emailed an article for the Big Rock Herald. I knew they would not publish it but it was my own way to resign. I said that the whole Iraq business was a fraud – that I had visited Iraq during the Hussein regime – that I did not know or cared for him but when I visited I found universal health care (almost a unique case in ‘third world’ countries), free education for the willing, up to and including university – that I felt safe wherever I travelled – that Saddam’s army may have killed a few hundred Kurds but Kurds were a pain in the ass for three countries and Turkey had killed thousands of them, with the blessing of the CIA – that stealing a country’s oil and calling it "bringing freedom and democracy" made me puke – that ‘contractors’ were but mercenaries paid to kill - that the average US citizen would not get any benefit from stealing the oil etc.

As expected I was immediately recalled to Big Rock. "Jones - said the Chief Editor without mentioning my article - after one year in a war zone you need a quieter assignment. Tradition sells, especially around Christmas and there are many people of Italian origin in Big Rock. I want you to go to Italy and report on this Befana tradition I heard of from an Italian, over a drink"

I accepted the assignment and postponed my resignations. I decided to travel to Triora, a medieval mountain town at the head of the valley that ends at Arma di Taggia on the Western Riviera. Triora is famous for the witches who were tortured and murdered there in 1588. Sightings of their ghosts are occasionally reported. The person in town reputed most knowledgeable about the paranormal was the owner of the local grocery store. I found the shop and noticed that the signboard still read ‘Commestibili’ (i.e. ‘edibles’), a term elsewhere abandoned after the invasion of supermarkets and franchises. I bought some of the locally-baked delicious almond cookies (‘anicini’) and then I asked the lady what were the chances of a witch sighting. "I couldn’t say – she replied – but you can try to be at the ‘Cabotina’ after dark no later than one hour before the moon sets on the other side of the valley".

The Cabotina is a mountain ledge on a steep cliff at the south end of Triora. A natural cavern opens up directly below the cliff ridge - this is the site where the witches allegedly met with the devil in the 1580s.

While waiting for the night to come, I walked slowly through the dark vaults and the steep, narrow, cobbled lanes of this little ancient town. Surrounded by silence, by shadow, by the leaden rigor of the dark slate I fell into a state of hypnotic relaxation, coupled with a subtle feeling of unease – as if someone had been watching me, but I could not see whom or from where.

After dark I arrived at the Cabotina and at about the expected time a figure appeared arrayed in Befana-witch clothing, with customary head scarf, broom and a jute bag – protruding from the bag the tip of a tall and narrow book, probably her book of magic.

• Ms. Befana, I assume – I said.
• Please do not call me ‘Befana’ – she said. Italians call ‘befana’ any mature lady whom they dislike for whatever reason.
• How should I call you then?
• Try ‘BB’.
• Good, as in Brigitte Bardot.

Presently the Befana disappeared and in her place stood a gorgeous young woman. She had long blond hair and wore a turtle-neck so tight that it made me want to be the turtle. Her jeans were so stretched that with a bit more light I could have read the washing instructions on the label of her underwear. Instinctively I extended an arm to verify that it wasn’t a vision. But it was a vision and the girl switched back to being BB

• Don’t get the wrong idea, BB said. We are all spirits up here and as soon as the moon sets I will melt into air, into thin air and like the baseless fabric of this vision I’ll leave no trace behind.
• You read Shakespeare! – I said – Congratulations and your English is excellent. But tell me, there are various theories about the Befana tradition and none conclusive. The Befana dresses like a witch and you are the spirit of one of the witches of Triora. I am curious to hear your take on the matter.
• Ask me what questions thou canst possible, and I will answer unpremeditated.

I could see by her wry smile and by the second Shakespearean answer that she appreciated my compliment.

And here is a summary of what I learned from BB. Her name in real life had been Isotta Stella. In 1587 the harvest was poor and food scarse. Rumor had it that some town council members had hoarded the harvest to sell it at a higher profit to merchants at the coast. The citizens became restive. To prevent further unrest three council members asked Genova to send an Inquisitor to stamp out witchcraft, now claimed to be the cause of the poor harvest.

The Bishop of Albenga sent an Inquisitor, a Dominican called Girolamo Del Pozzo. The Dominican gathered the Triorans in Church and in a terrorizing sermon on the omnipresence of Satan, he ordered the brethren to tell him, during confession, the name of any person whom they suspected of witchcraft. Isotta was the first victim. Her only guilt was her knowledge of medicinal herbs from which she blended various medicines and tisanes dispensed to the infirm. She died on the ‘wooden horse’, an instrument of torture still shown in the local museum.

The connection of the witches with the Befana – BB continued - was an act of atonement by the citizens of Triora for the murder of the alleged witches, but the Befana tradition itself had a lengthy development. To celebrate the new year the Celts burned a straw-filled puppet, an effigy of the old year. In the same spirit Celts and Vikings used the tree of light to celebrate the beginning of longer days after the winter solstice. Unable to extirpate the pagan traditions the Catholics made them politically correct, as we would say today. They set the birth of Christ at the time of the winter solstice and the tree of light became the Christmas tree. The Celtic puppet became the ‘befana’, who is connected by etymology to the feast of the Epiphany. ‘Befana’ is corrupted Latin for ‘Epifania’ (Epiphany). Epiphany is a Greek word meaning ‘apparition’ and it refers to the star that appeared to the three kings and guided them to Bethlehem. The conversion of the Celtic puppet into the Italian befana began sometime in the 13^th century.

After realizing the innocence of the women and the perversion of Girolamo Del Pozzo, the Triorans decided that the spirit of the witches could well be or become the spirit of the Befana. On the evening of Jan 5 the Triorans (and many other Italians) still leave a cookie or something to eat for the expected visitor while the children, of course, hope to find the Befana’s gifts in the Befana sock, next morning. BB said that she was now organizing her inventory for later delivery of gifts to the children across the country on the forthcoming Epiphany.

Time was running out.

• Will there always be a Befana tradition? I asked. She did not answer directly.
• You met the lady who owns the grocery store in town – BB said. She is a distant descendant of another witch tortured and killed by the Dominican. Both Starbucks and 7/11 have proposed to turn the store into a franchise.
• Did she accept? – I asked.
• No, but who can tell what her heirs will do.
• And if they will accept the offer?

She glanced at the broom and at her book of magic.

• The Befana tradition will end, at least in Triora – she said. – I will not appear again, I will abjure my magic, break my broom, bury it certain fathoms in the earth and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my book.

Just then the lower edge of the moon touched the mountain crest and BB vanished. Next day I drove back to the coast on the first leg of my return journey. Ahead the unequivocal blue of the marine Tyrrhenian sky, diaphanous, tender, heart-rendering. That sky, I thought, shares with the Befana tradition the charm of what eludes a precise description or can be defined in unconnected ways. The blue of the Tyrrhenian sky is a phenomenon explained by science – or the source and inspiration of deep and personal emotions. Just as the Befana is a pagan symbol transformed by the Catholics into a link with the Epiphany. But in another way, the Befana is a popular fantasy invented to make superstition less threatening and to satisfy our hunger for myths and our desire to believe the incredible.

Back in Big Rock I delivered my report to the newspaper and resigned.

Jimmie Moglia

-Shakespeare's Views on the News-

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