Modern Italian culture is rife with burning old women in effigy as witches or evil crones.

[tarnport@mastodon.green]

Modern Italian culture is rife with burning old women in effigy as witches or evil crones. But now it's reached my Presepe and I'm really pissed!

Apparently the washerwoman (or midwife!) attending the Virgin in the Neapolitan tradition, while porting a litany of other symbols, is also associated with the Devil in disguise, trying to keep Mary from giving birth to the Christ.

Now, I'd welcome a kinky demon outright to my manger scene, but the guise of an old woman is pure misogyny. Again.

[max@poliverso.org]

@Tarnport

Have you double check this information? Because I'd never heard about a devil/witch in the presepe.

I'll also double check on my side because both my parents and my grandparents were from Benevento, which is known as "the city of witches" but I discovered that only ten years ago. Just to say that my family wasn't so good at telling me about witches 😁