It is a great mistake to think that there are no fairies in Italy, and one of
the nicest is called La Befana, and she belongs to Christmas just like the
holly and mistletoe and snowmen. She comes only once a year as the Three Kings
do, and she is not young and beautiful, but old and bent and more like a witch
than a fairy. In fact, before people realized how kind she was, they thought
of her as a wicked witch and rang bells made of earthenware and blew glass
trumpets to frighten her away. But all this has been forgotten now, and
anyhow, the Befana never deserved it as her story will show.
The first thing to notice about her is that she is very ancient, and when Our
Lord was born the Befana was already a little bent and her hair was white.
She had a tiny cottage outside Bethlehem and after her husband died she lived