Before she swept chimneys, filled stockings, or became part of Epiphany in the Christian tradition, La Befana was a figure of raw winter magic. She was the last great witch who walked the line between the living world and the spirit realm.
Her story goes back to Italy’s oldest myths, when people believed in the Three Faces of the Year: the Maiden of Spring, the Mother of Summer, and the Crone of Winter.
The Crone, dressed in night and crowned with frost, breathed the cold that sealed the soil. She was said to sweep across the land with a broom made of the first wood ever grown, older than human memory. Wherever her broom touched, she cleared away the tired spirits of the old year, making room for new life.
That Crone, with her terror and wisdom, is the ancient skeleton of the figure we now call Befana.
People said her eyes gleamed like lanterns in a blizzard. Her clothes were patchwork because every piece represented a part of time — rags from forgotten seasons, worn thin by centuries. The earliest tales say she knew every birth, every death, and every unspoken wish.
Children left her offerings of wine and honey not out of excitement but out of respect, hoping she would bless their homes instead of taking their luck with the old year’s dust.
