Today, January 6th, is known in Ireland as “Women’s Christmas” or “Little Christmas”.
It is celebrated in a religious context as the Feast of the Epiphany
or the commemoration of the arrival of the Three Wise Men from the East
with gifts to the child Jesus.
As a child in the West of Ireland “Nollaig na mBan”
gave me and my siblings a final taste of the holiday season.
It was a day when we were expected to give more help to our mother
than might be our usual habit.
That night, after a dinner that would resemble the Christmas dinner,
we would play lots of board games or card games.
There was also a tradition, one I didn’t like, of lighting twelve small candles,
placing them on a board, and every person in the house at that stage, visitor or family member, would choose a candle to be named for them.
The spooky part of the tradition was that the first candle
that guttered its way to being naturally extinguished would signify
that its nominated person would be the first of the assembled group to die.
Of course, none of us ever remembered if our candles burned out more rapidly than others’ ones.


A letter from a friend yesterday reminded me of the Italian tradition
that also assigns a woman to this day: La Befana.
In Italian folklore the sixth of January is Befana day.

Befana is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve (the night of January 5) in a similar way to Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus.
This Italian gift-giving spirit is also known as Saint Befana,
La Vecchia (the Old Woman), and La Strega (the Witch).
I remembered that another woman friend, who had visited Italy at this time of the year, had brought me back a model of La Befana whose image you can see above.