The Three Kings or the Befana?
Who is the Italian Befana?
She is an old lady who on the night between January 5 and 6 brings a stocking with gifts and sweets to good children.
If they were bad instead brings coal.
Often we wonder if it is more important to celebrate the Befana, typical figure of the Italian tradition, or the Three Kings?
But did you know that the Befana and the Three Wise Men met and that’s why they are both part of the Epiphany?
Legend has it that on a very cold winter night the three Magi Baldassare, Gasparre and Melchiorre, on their way to Bethlehem to see the Baby Jesus following the comet, could not find their way.
They asked for information to an old woman who showed them the way.
The Wise Men invited the old woman to join them, but despite her insistence, she refused.
Once the Wise Men had left, she regretted not having followed them because she saw the star of the comet pass by.
So she began to prepare a large sack that she filled with sweets and gifts to take with her to look for the child that the 3 Kings were looking for.
The old woman, then, began to knock on every door, giving every child she met something, in the hope that one of them was the baby Jesus.
Failing to find him since then, every January 6, it is said that the old woman continues to deliver gifts in the hope of finding Baby Jesus.
