Italian Christmas Traditions: La Befana

La Befana is a Christmas witch who brings sweets to the good children on the night before the Epiphany.

The Italian Christmas traditions about the Befana go back to pre-Christian times.

Like many ancient myths, the story became part of the Christian tradition and the good witch brought sweets to the children in celebration of the Epiphany, the day the tree Kings presented their gifts to baby Jesus.

The result of this myth fusion is that Italian children are so lucky to receive their presents on Christmas morning and on the 6th of January.

La Befana is depicted as an old woman, with long skirts and a hood on her head who flies on a broom and delivers sweets to good children and charcoal to the bad ones.

This is what a nursery rhyme says about the good witch:

La Befana vien di notte

con le scarpe tutte rotte

col cappuccio rosso e blu

noci e fichi butta giu’.

The Befana comes at night

with broken shoes

a blue and red hood

and delivers nuts and figs.

Now Italian children expect more from the befana than nuts and figs and at the beginning of January you can see the shop windows decorated with socks filled with sweets and chocolate.

Italian confectioners, to keep also the bad kids happy, make a kind of sweet that looks like charcoal but tastes sweet and delicious.

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If Santa Claus lives on the North Pole, Befana has her house in Urbania, a lovely little town in Le Marche region.

Every year Urbania celebrates the Befana tradition with a week long festival that includes fireworks, performances in the beautiful historical theater, markets, parades and acrobatic flight of a very athletic befana from the highest tower of the town.


More about the Befana legend

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