 Festa della Befana
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WaveRider
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Sun Jan 06 2008, 01:13PM
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Registered Member #29
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 09:00AM
Location: Hasselt, Belgium
Posts: 500
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Saluti e buona Festa della Befana a tutti! Spero che si riceva tutto quello che si merita quest anno! 
For those who do not know....Jan. 6 is a special day where Italian kids hang their stockings out to receive lumps of coal (or black licorice) and gifts (supposedly roughly in proportion to how good they were in the last year)...brought by a kindly witch on a broom... It is somehow linled to the visit of the 3 kings on Christ's birthday, but I still don't fully understand the connection...since I see more pagan connections than Christian in the custom....
Cheers!
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Bjørn
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Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
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There are many variations of that, slightly different from place to place. It predates Christianity. In one version you fill the stockings with food for Sleipnir (Odin's horse) and in return Odin will place gifts in the stockings. There are other variations involving bad-tempered gnomes.
The overlapping with Christianity is deliberate, it was a planned strategy to replace pagan traditions with Christian traditions in an attempt to get rid of the sin. It is worth noting that in large parts of Europe the process has reversed and the word Christmas has turnd into a generic term for a time of year that involves excessive drinking and eating and has nothing to do with Jesus anymore.
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