ght on Epiphany Eve
a peasant--not too sober--suddenly heard behind him "a sound of many
voices, which came on nearer and nearer, and then the Berchtl, in her
white clothing, her broken ploughshare in her hand, and all her train of
little people, swept clattering and chattering close past him. The least
was the last, and it wore a long shirt which got in the way of its little
bare feet, and kept tripping it up. The peasant had sense enough left to
feel compassion, so he took his garter off and bound it for a girdle
round the infant, and then set it again on its way. When the Berchtl saw
what he had done, she turned back and thanked him, and told him that in
return for his compassion his children should never come to want."{66}

|244| In Tyrol, by the way, it is often said that the Perchtl is
Pontius Pilate's wife, Procula.{67} In the Italian dialects of south
Tyrol the German Frau Berchta has been turned into _la donna Berta_.{68}
If one goes further south, into Italy itself, one meets with a similar
being, the Befana, whose name is plainly nothing but a corruption of
_Epiphania_. She is so distinctly a part of the Epiphany festival that we
may leave her to be considered later.

* * * * *

Of all supernatural Christmas visitors, the most vividly realized and
believed in at the present day are probably the Greek _Kallikantzaroi_ or
_Karkantzaroi_.{69} They are the terror of the Greek peasant during the
Twelve Days; in the soil of his imagination they flourish luxuriantly,
and to him they are a very real and living nuisance.

Traditions about the _Kallikantzaroi_ vary from region to region, but in
general they are half-animal, half-human monsters, black, hairy, with
huge heads, glaring red eyes, goats' or asses' ears, blood-red tongues
hanging out, ferocious tusks, monkeys' arms, and long curved nails, and
commonly they have the foot of some beast. "From dawn till sunset they
hide themselves in dark and dank places ... but at night they issue forth
and run wildly to and fro, rending and crushing those who cross their
path. Destruction and waste, greed and lust mark their course." When a
house is not prepared against their coming, "by chimney and door alike
they swarm in, and make havoc of the home; in sheer wanton mischief they
overturn and break all the furniture, devour the Christmas pork, befoul
all the water and wine and food which remains, and leave the occupants
half dead with frigh