The case of benandanti and many similar trials in the Alps make the region particularly significant in the history of witchcraft. The early dates of these prosecutions, their number, and the tenaciousness of these beliefs and practices in remote mountain valleys have caused many scholars to regard the Alps as the birthplace of the modern European notion of witchcraft. As it was clerics from this region and nearby German-speaking lands who defined this concept, the folklore of Holda-Perchta was naturally a central element.
Heinrich Kramer, who in 1486 authored the infamous Malleus Maleficarum (“The Hammer of Witches”), began his career prosecuting witches in Tyrol and also functioned as Church-appointed Inquisitor over the German-speaking Salzburg, Moravia, and Bohemia. Though he initially failed in his Tyrolean persecutions and was expelled by the bishop of Innsbruck for behaving as a “senile old man,” Kramer responded by soliciting, and receiving in 1484, a bull from Innocent VIII allowing him free hand in these efforts.
Not long before this, in Switzerland, where the säligen Lütt roamed by night, battle lines were already being drawn at the ecclesiastic Council of Basel. Convening in 1435, in part to discuss the witch cults coming to attention in the Alps and beyond, clerics gathering there, according to historian Wolfgang Behringer, “could exchange opinions as if at a European trade fair; they heard not only reports of the trial of Joan of Arc, but also got the first public view of the new image of the witches’ sabbath, an idea that had been invented in the region around Lake Geneva.” German theologian Johannes Nider was largely responsible for shaping this view, and his witch-hunting guide Formicarius, Behringer says, characterized these pagan beliefs “as a specifically Alpine vice.”
The paradigm shift Nider and Kramer created conceived of witchcraft as a more immediate and present danger than ever before. Older canon law as interpreted by Burchard of Worms in his comments on Holda regarded the matter as one of misguided peasant superstition. Tales of spirit travels were viewed as mere dreams or foolishness encouraged by Satan, and relatively lenient penances were proscribed. But with Nider’s and Kramer’s work, these travels became literally real and dangerously demonic. Inquisitors were to press defendants for information on a previously unseen male figure appearing at real-world gatherings, one who could easily be identified with Satan. Also aggressively sought was evidence of abjurations of Christ, the trampling of the host or crucifix, and the like. The feasting of the Venusberg and drinking in wine cellars was thereby slowly transformed to the more Satanic revels of the modern witches’ sabbath.
Witch Hunting and Hauntings in Tyrol
South Tyrol, which has already been discussed in terms of its significant influence on Nicholas and Perchten traditions, also seems to have been the site of particularly important witchcraft activity associated with figures like Holda. Traces of this still survive in certain landmarks, local legends, traditions, and even regional tourism, and the same might be said of the adjacent Italian state of Trentino, once part of the Habsburg state of Tyrol.
The nearby valleys of Fassa and Fiemme, nestling between the uniquely eerie crags of the Dolomites, were both sites of early trials. The investigation of two women in Val di Fassa, conducted in 1457 by the German theologian, Nicholas of Cusa produced testimonies of participants traveling by night “to a place full of dancing and festive folk.” Like the activities of Holda-Perchta, these gatherings took place on the Ember Nights and were presided over by a mistress identified by the defendants in Italian as “bona domina Richella,” or “the good mistress of fortune,” which Cusa translated with the Latinized “Fortuna” and also the German “Hulda” (Holda).
Trials in Val di Fiemme, during which 14 people were executed from 1501-1505, were partially instigated by the magician Giovanni delle Piatte mentioned above for having allegedly encountered Herodias and Loyal Eckhart in the Venusberg. Instead of facing execution, Della Piatte was merely banned from Fiemme after naming others prosecutors might pursue for witchcraft. The most famous of these was Margherita Tesero (called Vanzina) who also referred to a mysterious mistress presiding over activities. Vanzina mentioned two troupes, or spiritual societies, perhaps akin to those of the benandanti and malandanti. One was said to be devoted to the “game of the devil” and composed of incubi and nightmare-spirits, while the other was led by the “Mistress of the Good Game.”
Not far away is the Schlern (Sciliar) mountain where witches have for centuries been said to hold their Sabbaths, congregating on ancient stone slabs known as “witch benches.” The notorious Schlernhexen (Schlern witches) are reimagined today as tourism icons, adorning signs of local businesses and showing up as rather grandmotherly dolls and figurines. Mountain legends here are rich with stories of herb-women, “wild folk,” wood and water spirits, giants, and a magical garden of roses blasted to a naked crag by dwarf King Laurin. Also cursed by Laurin were protective mountain spirits who tended his roses, the Säligen, who were thereby transformed into witches, either flying off to their sabbaths or left clinging to the mountain slopes in the form of wildflowers, the Aquilegia einseleana, commonly called “Schlernhexen.”
Court records of witchcraft in the area present a decidedly grimmer picture. Nine women accused of witchcraft between 1506 and 1510 met their death, either by fire or, more gruesomely, were drawn and quartered (i.e., torn asunder by charging horses to which they were tied). During trials Juliane Winklerin, Anna Mioler-in, and the Austrian Anna Jobstin used the term “the Game of the Good Society,” to describe their nocturnal dancing and feasting on the Schlern as well as night flights (on broomsticks, benches, chairs, and a cow).
Prompted by the newer, diabolical image of witchcraft promoted by Nider and Kramer, as well as the torture to which Inquisitors here resorted, the Schlern witches confessed not only to initial allegations of having manipulated the weather and cursed neighbors, but also to fornicating with the Devil and killing, cooking, and eating a baby. After the child was eaten, defendants related that the baby’s bones were collected, and from these it was possible to magically restore the child to life.
Apart from the regrettable part torture may have played in the confession, this miraculous control over life and death, found in many other accounts of witches feasting on cattle or game, may have been a genuine element of the cult’s beliefs as it symbolically reinforces the Good Lady’s ability to miraculously replenish food, restore life, and grant abundance—elements we have already learned to associate with Holda.
From the 1540 trial of Barbara Pachler, not far away in Sarnhein, come more stories of babies being cooked and eaten. Originally accused also of manipulating the weather, Pachler confessed to having met the Devil and a company of witches at a site dotted with weird stone monuments known as the Stoanerne Mandln or “stone men.” Roughly 100 in number, these towering spires of stacked stones remain mysterious in terms of origin or purpose. While some may have merely been constructed by bored shepherds in recent years, carvings on the rocks, and flint tools found nearby, have suggested much earlier, possibly Celtic, some say even Neolithic, origins. The uncanny presence of these monuments, along with the preternatural activities associated with them, have done much to fuel ongoing local legends of the witch Pachler, or Pachlerzottl (“ragged Pachler”), as she is called, flitting amid the stones on moonlit nights.
The fear of witchcraft that exploded in the Alps of the 15th and 16th century has left vestiges in folk rituals and traditions involving fires and witches, many of which take place around Carnival, particularly Epiphany, Perchta’s day.
During Epiphany week in the South-Tyrolean-Trentino town of Cavalese, the witch trials of Val di Fiemme are commemorated with a re-enactment. Accompanied by drums and torches, the accused are marched to a park outside the palace, seated around an ancient stone table, and dialogue from court transcripts is read. After the inescapable verdict, four effigies are staked and set ablaze. Similarly, in the Bavarian Alps, the town of Burgberg performs the Eggaspiel, a folk play inspired by a rash of witchcraft trials that took place in the region between 1586–1592. The masked performance portrays scenes of a farming couple and their livestock (portrayed by animal-masked locals) tormented by a witch who is eventually chased through the town, captured, tried, and burned in effigy. The play takes place every three years during Carnival.
Witch torments horses in the Egga-Spiel (Egga Play), Sonthofen, Bavarian Alps. Photo by Flodur63 (2010) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Twelfth Night reenactment of Val di Fiemme witch trials in Cavalese, South Tyrol/Trentino. Photo ©Massimo Piazzi (2011).
Throughout northern areas of Italy bordering or within the Alps, the burning of a witch effigy traditionally takes place on Epiphany, or on the last Thursday of January in Lombardy (Thursdays being favored for witches’ Sabbaths). In the Vene- to and Friuli regions bordering Austria, the burning of the effigy is called panevin, while in Piedmont and Lombardy, the puppet burned, and by extension the tradition itself, is known as the Giubiana. The custom is particularly elaborate in the Lombard town of Canzo with a theatrical masked procession accompanied by drum and bagpipe to the bonfire. Dispatching the witch drives out the winter and ensures annual protection from the baleful influence of witchcraft. The direction and motion of the flames and smoke are carefully observed for omens regarding the weather and harvests of the coming year. Sometimes prognostications of this type are also offered by a costumed witch presiding over the proceedings.
In Veneto and Friuli, the costumed witch present at these fires, as well as the rag or straw effigy burned, is known as La Befana, a name understood to be a corruption of the Italian word for Epiphany (Epifania). Far beyond the northern bonfire customs, throughout Italy, and even Sicily, La Befana is known to most every Italian. Now conceived as a mostly benevolent grandmotherly character, and often represented by small broom-riding dolls displayed in windows or on chimneys, La Befana is said on Twelfth Night to stuff stockings of good children with small gifts of fruit and candy while leaving “coal” made of sugar for the less well behaved. The custom of burning her in effigy, however, suggests that La Befana was in former centuries a more fearsome character. While noting her benevolence to good children, Jacob Grimm in 1835 refers to La Befana as a “misshapen fairy” whom he characterizes as “black and ugly.” Quite understandably, he regards this Epiphany witch as the Italian version of Frau Perchta. According to folk songs and stories, she comes, like Holda or Perchta, “from the mountains,” and is occasionally said to reside in a cave.