The benandanti or “good walkers” were witches in the eyes of the Church, but the inhabitants of Italy’s Friuli province regarded them as healers who protected the harvest. We know from Inquisition investigations that four times a year, during the nights of ember days, they entered a cataleptic state and left their bodies in the form of spirits. They rode cats, mice or hares to otherworldly fields, where they fought the malandanti, the evil witches.

The malandanti fought with sticks of sorghum, which they also used as brooms, while the benandanti used bundles of fennel. If the benandanti won, they protected the harvest; if they lost, the malandanti ruined the wheat and the wine.

Despite all the good deeds the benandanti carried out, the Inquisition did not differentiate between good and evil witchcraft. Many of them were persecuted for heresy. However, the benandanti were sworn to secrecy and they never revealed who their companions, or even their enemies the malandanti, were.

Discover more witches like them from the Well-wishers chapter of The Book of Forgotten Witches.

Illustration by Lilla Bölecz.