Vagabond Souls

[In the late 1500s, a curious practice prevalent in the remote hills beyond Palermo came to the attention of the Italian Inquisition.] This was the ritual association of the benandanti, or ‘good walkers’, a body of men chosen from those born with the caul, who fell into a trance or deep sleep on certain nights of the year while their souls (sometimes in the form of small animals) left their bodies so that they could do battle, against analogous companies of male witches, for the fate of the season’s crops. They also performed cures and other kinds of benevolent magic . . . —E.J. Hobsbawm, 1983

About a year before the angel appeared to me, my mother gave me the caul in which I had been born . . . and she told me that I was born a benandante, and that when I grew up I would go forth at night, and that I must wear it on my person, and that I would go with the benandanti to fight the witches. —Confession of Paolo Gasparutto, 1580

Various others also are mentioned as being either witches or benandanti, as the crazy populace refers to them. When [the Inquisitor wishes], they can be uncovered, although I believe it will be in vain and cause a great commotion. —Don Giacomo Burlino, 1622

These are the delirious fantasies of base-born old folk or ignorant and simple people, vulgar rustics . . . —Samuel de Cassinis, 1505

It is an established fact that many witches were epileptics, and that many demoniacs suffered from hysteria. Still, there seems little doubt that we are confronted with many manifestations which can not be explained on pathological grounds . . . . It would seem obvious to ascribe the catalepsy and the lethargy by which the benandanti claimed to be afflicted to epileptic fits . . . . The documents available to us, however, do not give sufficient information, and the nature of the benandanti’s catalepsy remains a mystery . . . the puzzle of the benandanti and their beliefs must be resolved on the basis of the history of popular religiosity, not on that of pharmacology or psychiatry. —Carlo Ginzburg, 1983