Epiphany falls on the twelfth night after the birth of Jesus and marks the end of the journey made by the Magi, following the star, until they reached the stable of the Holy Family. That night, the Kings, who had come from the East, paid homage to the baby Jesus, offering him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Thus, the royalty and divinity of that tiny baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, were revealed to the world.

How is the Christian feast of Epiphany connected to the Befana?

With Epiphany, as with Christmas (the day on which pagan culture celebrated the “sun conquering darkness”), we witness the merging of Christian holidays with rites and traditions of much more ancient origin.
The term Befana originally meant “epiphany,” from the Greek Bifania, and its origins are pagan. If December 25 was chosen as Christmas Day from the pagan festival of Sol Invictus, when the sun conquers the longest night of the year, the winter solstice, it was traditional to celebrate the goddess Diana, goddess of abundance and the hunt, 12 days later. Twelve days after the winter solstice, the death and rebirth of nature were celebrated: in the oldest cults, the “epiphany” of Mother Nature was celebrated. In ancient Rome, this Bifania was identified with Diana. The goddess was not described as ugly and old, but the Church of the Early Middle Ages, in order to distance itself from pagan propitiatory rites, transformed Befana into a witch.

An elderly woman who brings sweets to children

Later, the Church changed the negative meaning of Befana, giving her a positive image connected with the story of the Magi. Thus was born the legend that gave rise to the tradition of the Befana stocking. In the 12th century, the belief spread that the Magi, having difficulty finding the place where Jesus was born, asked an elderly woman for directions. She refused to help them and did not want to follow them to visit the Child. The woman, having repented, prepared a basket of sweets and went looking for the Magi but, unable to find them, stopped at every house, giving sweets to all the children she met in the hope of meeting Jesus. From that moment on, the custom spread of leaving the children’s shoes and stockings outside the house so that, during her long journey, Befana could change them or, better still, in the hope that they would be filled with delicious sweets!