‘The Befana comes by night With her shoes all tattered and torn, She comes dressed in the Roman way, Long live the Befana!’
~Traditional Italian Rhyming Verses
La Befana is a witch-like character in Italian folklore who leaves her cave in the mountains and flies on her backward broomstick across the skies on Epiphany Eve (January 5), delivering gifts to good children and punishing the naughty ones. Her arrival is celebrated across the regions with offerings of many different kinds of cakes. It has been said that she sweeps the floor before leaving back up the chimney, symbolic of sweeping away the old year's troubles.
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