I went to the first La Befana celebrations in our local town for two years this week. Everyone was certainly in high spirits.

For those of you who don’t know, La Befana, until recently was more celerated than Santa and children here now get to celebrate Father Christmas coming on 25 December as well as La Befana on the eve of Epiphany!

La Befana brings sweets to good children and coal to naughty ones. The coal, incidentally has now been substitued by sugar coal so sweets are enjoyed by all! The legend of La Befana goes right back to the 13 century and is much older here in Italy than Babbo Natale, or Father Christmas.

The legend of La Befana is derived from pre-christian times. She has a pointy nose and chin and flies on a broom. She climbs down chimneys and delivers the sweets, or coal, to stockings that are hanging on the fire place!

The Christian legend has it that La Befana’s story is linked very closely to that of the Magi. Unable to find their way, they asked an old lady for directions. She showed them the way and they invited her to join them but she refused. Later, she regretted this so she prepared a sack of sweets and cakes and went to find them. Unfortunately she was unable to do so. She searched for the baby Jesus by knocking on every door and giving sweets to every child, in the hope that one would indeed be Jesus. She still searches even today and her legend and celebrations thrive as strongly as ever, as seen in my small town.

A wonderful evening was enjoyed by all, including a spectacular Nordic Log fire which was enormous and filled the piazza with warmth.