Tomorrow, Blue Monday, is the most miserable day of the year, it is said. Largely, to start with anyway, by travel companies seeking to sell us the promise of better things to come in the form of summer holidays. however, this notion since has been enthusiastically adopted by the media more generally, who would now have us all believe that finding January miserable has become not merely customary, but practically obligatory. You know the usual shtick: the Christmas decorations have been consigned to the loft for another year, the only Quality Street left rattling round at the bottom of the tin are the sickly soft centres, all you can find in the freezer is yet more leftover turkey and you’ve already made curry three times. The weather is ghastly, the credit card bills have landed, the poinsettia has turned to twigs, and as for the new year diet and ‘dry January’…
In Italy, though, we have an extra public holiday to help keep the festive vibe going for a little longer. If Christmas here traditionally starts on 8th December with the public holiday that marks feast of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, it equally traditionally ends on 6th January with the feast of Epiphany. This feast commemorates the visit of the Magi to the new born Holy Infant, and thus the revelation of god made flesh as Jesus Christ. That’s the official, Church position, at least. More popularly, however, this public holiday also celebrates the arrival on the Eve of Epiphany – aka Twelfth Night – of La Befana.
On the night before Epiphany this cheery-looking, hook-nosed hag, who in Italy is easily as popular among children as Babbo Natale (Santa Claus), rides on her broomstick from house to house, filling children’s stockings with toys, sweets and fruits – if they have been good; if the have been bad, they may receive just coal, onions or garlic. But since no child can be good all the time, every stocking nowadays normally also contains a chunk of coal in the form of black-coloured candy. Good or bad, though, if children try to catch a glimpse of La Befana when she arrives, she may give them a whack with her broomstick – although this may just be a parental ruse to try and keep over-excited children in bed. La Befana is usually depicted wearing a black shawl and covered in soot since she enters children’s houses via the chimney. As a gesture of welcome and thanks, families usually leave her a glass of wine and a plate of tasty titbits or Christmas treats such as panettone to restore her for her onward journey. She is a well-mannered visitor and traditionally sweeps the floor with her broom before she leaves, which to some has come to symbolise sweeping away the problems of the old year.
While it was not until the twentieth century that the traditions of La Befana cameto be practised throughout Italy, her roots are thought to be in Roman festivities honouring both Strenia, the goddess of the new year, purification and wellbeing, and Janus, the god of beginnings, endings and transitions, who is usually pictured facing both backwards and forwards. These were held at the start of the year – ‘January’ is widely thought to derive from ‘Janus’ – and involved the exchange of gifts. Like many rites and customs of pagan worship, La Befana was subsequently adopted by the early Church and her origins woven into the Christian narrative relating to the birth of the Christ Child. The only thing is, the Church has never been able to settle on a single, definitive version of the legend. That said, most versions typically tell of the Magi asking La Befana for help in their search for the new born Son of God, and her regret that she does not accompany them on her journey because she has her housework to do. Which doesn’t do much for the claim that ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’. Anyway, wracked with guilt, La Befana later tries either to join the Magi in their search, or to find the baby Jesus herself, and according to one telling, takes food and gifts for the infant Christ with her, along with her trusty broom with which to help Mary keep the stable clean. Her good intentions go unrewarded, though, and so more than two thousand years later she still visits the home of every child in her continued search for the new born Messiah. In the absence of the Son of God himself, she leaves gifts for all good children, taking comfort from the belief that the Christ Child is present in all children. Another variation offers a more tragic spin and depicts La Befana as a grieving mother, who, on hearing of the birth of Jesus, sets out to find him, believing him to be her dead child. In this version, however, her search is successful and she is able to present the Christ Child with her gifts, and the gift he gives her in return is to be the mother of every child in Italy.
Although La Befana is an integral part of Epiphany celebrations everywhere, she is held in especially high regard in the post-unification regions that historically formed part of the Papal States, in particular Lazio, Umbria and Le Marche. Indeed, La Befana’s official home is in Urbania, a small town in Le Marche’s north-west corner, where the four-day Festa della Befana is held annually. These protracted festivities normally involve every conceivable variety of Befana-based activity, attracting over fifty thousand visitors every year and rising. Children can visit La Befana in her house (a permanent site within the town hall), listen to her stories, watch her knitting stockings and scarves, and leave her letters at the Befana Post Office expressing their good intentions for the forthcoming year. The town is lavishly decorated for the occasion with Befana-themed adornments including four thousand knitted stockings, and its winding, medieval streets are filled with stands offering craft demonstrations and traditional games, handmade toys and local food and drink. There are fire jugglers, street performers, dance and music as well as dressing-up competitions and gaggles of Befanas swooping among the bell towers.
And this year there was even more jollity than usual in Urbania as the traditional festivities finally returned in all their glory after a three-year, pandemic-induced absence. So we can hope that La Befana has lived up to her reputation as a super-efficient housekeeper and used an extra big broom to sweep away the problems of the Covid years to ensure that in 2023 we can again sing, dance, eat, drink and make merry together. Once the weather has improved, the turkey is finished, we’ve paid off our credit card bills and dry January is over, anyway.
Image: painting by James Lewicki from “The Golden Book of Christmas Tales”, 1956 https://italialiving.com/articles/lifestyle/the-feast-of-the-epiphany-and-celebration-of-la-befana/
Ms Marche 