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Aradia in Sardinia:Te Archaeology o a Folk Character

Sabina Magliocco

Prologue

Tis paper builds upon my article Who Was Aradia? Te History andDevelopment of a Legend (2001). As one o the peer reviewers or thatpaper, Proessor Hutton gave me extremely valuable eedback, thus

beginning what became a very ruitul cross-disciplinary exchangeo ideas. While Proessor Hutton and I have dierent disciplinaryspecialties history and olkloristics/ ethnology, respectively we areinterested in many o the same subjects and broader theoretical issues;thus our perspectives complement one another.

Moreover, while my own grasp o history is weak and awed, ProessorHuttons mastery o anthropological and olkloristic literature is

extraordinary or a scholar trained in a completely dierent discipline.It is thereore especially tting that my contribution to this volumeonce again take up the threads o that original paper, expanding themin new directions and adding to what Proessor Hutton has himselwritten on the subject o Herodias and Aradia. Tis work also providesan unexpected link between my early ethnographic research inSardinia and my later interest in contemporary Witchcrat, bringingmy research ull circle in a satisying way.

I had the privilege o meeting Proessor Hutton in person or the rsttime in April o 2004, when my colleague John Bishop and I cameto Britain with two students in tow to lm a May Day celebration in


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I was privileged to be chosen to be a respondent to his remarks. Hespoke to an unusually large audience which consisted o both scholarsand Pagans, and managed the difcult task o charming and enlight-

ening both camps, receiving enthusiastic accolades. It is thereore withgratitude and aection that I return to Aradia, the topic o our rstcontact, and oer this small contribution to the volume in honor o thetenth anniversary o the publication o Proessor Huttons master work,riumph of the Moon: a History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft.

Who is She?

Aradia is arguably one o the central gures o the modern pagan witch-crat revival. She is the main character o amateur olklorist CharlesG. Lelands Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1899), where sheappears as the daughter o Diana, sent to earth by her divine mother toteach the mysteries o witchcrat to Italian peasants. Gerald Gardnerwas certainly inuenced by Leland in his creation o modern paganWitchcrat, particularly in the use o the name Aradia as the principalgoddess o the Crat until the early 1960s, and his priestess DoreenValiente based some o her prose Charge o the Goddess possibly

the most widely diused piece o Wiccan liturgy on material romLelands Aradia.

Tere have been other literary interpretations o this character amongmodern pagans, notably Aidan Kellys Epistle of Diana, a privately-published novel which has been spread through the Internet, andMyth Woodlings short story Te Secret Story o Aradia, based ona legend rom Lelands original text entitled Te House o the Wind

and also published online (http://www.jesterbear.com/Aradia/secret.html). Italian American author Raven Grimassi has elaborated onAradias story and biography in his books Ways of the Strega (1995),Italian Witchcraft (2000) and Hereditary Witchcraft (1999), giving hera surname, personal history and twelve ollowers to spread her gospelater her disappearance.

While Leland equates Aradia with Herodias (1899, 1), later arguingthat she is actually a version o Lilith (1899, 102), a number o othertheories regarding the origin o Aradias name have been proposed.One hypothesis, put orth by the Italian scholar Lorenza Menegoniin her translation and edition o Lelands Aradia, is that the name


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actually derives rom the Greek Ariadne, through its Etruscan cognateAreatha (Menegoni, 1999, xii). Te French scholar o Etruscan,Zacharie Mayani, connects the root Ar- with the words or re and

altar, and by association the concepts o luminosity and sacredness;thus Areatha or Arathia would be the luminous one, a tting epithetor the daughter o the moon goddess (Mayani, 1963). Another expla-nation links Aradias name to the Latin words ara, altar, and dea,goddess, making her the goddess worshipped at the altar; or, alterna-tively, aratrum (plough) and dea, signiying goddess o the ertile earth(Grimassi, http://www.stregheria.com/Herodias.html ). Te troublewith these derivations is that they are putative; no name Areatha,Arathia or Aradia survives in either Etruscan inscriptions or Romanliterature. Te question o origins is not altogether settled, becausewhile the parameters o the narrative parallel that o medieval legendso Herodias, or Erodiade, as she was known in Italian, there is norecord o the name Aradia in any published Italian text or medievalmanuscript. Likewise, while numerous Italian olk characters havenames which derive rom Erodiade or example, la Redodesa,Redodeia, and Aredodesa in subalpine Italy (Cattabiani 1994, 13),these reer to the good Christmas witch o Italian olklore, la Befana,

suggesting a connection between medieval legends o a supernaturalemale gure who ies through the air, and the development o themodern childrens legend. Ethnographers have hitherto not collectedmaterial about a character specically called Aradia.

Ronald Hutton in act suggested that the name Aradia was actuallyLelands Italianisation o Jules Michelets witch goddess Herodiade,rom his novel La Sorcire (1862) (Hutton, 1993, 307). While Michelets

romantic, egalitarian portrayal o witchcrat certainly inuencedLeland, who may well have based his assumption that Aradia was in actHerodias upon the work o Michelet, my research suggests that Aradiaalready existed in Italian olklore; she did not need Leland to invent her.

In this paper I present indirect evidence that a medieval Italian characterby the name o Aradia must have existed, or she survived in Sardiniaunder a slightly dierent name until the late 20th century. I will demon-strate that she is linked to medieval legends o Herodias and Diana,and that her name is a Sardinian version o the Italian Aradia. Myhypothesis is that at some point beore the late 19th century, legendsabout an Italian character by the name o Aradia, corresponding to


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medieval legends o Herodias and Diana and linked to witches andairies, were brought to Sardinia, where they developed independently.

Tis does not mean, however, that the Sardinian olk character is thesame as the modern Pagan Aradia, nor that Aradia is the same as thebiblical character Herodias; a combination o alse etymology, misun-derstanding and deliberate deception may have led to the syncretismo several legendary characters during the middle ages. Tis will beexplored in depth below.

In addition to the linguistic portion o my argument, I also maintainthat the presence o Aradia in Sardinia as late as the 1980s illustratesthe tremendous conservatism o this legend, even as it also ully adaptedto a Sardinian context and blended with indigenous legend material.One o the reasons or the cool reception o Lelands Gospel amongItalian olklorists in the early 20th century, compared to the interestprovoked by his other works, was skepticism regarding the possi-bility o the continued existence o belies about Diana and Herodias(Menegoni 1999, x-xi).

Te survival in Sardinian olklore o the 1980s o a character related toAradia attests to the longue dure o narratives about Diana and Herodias,and the possibility that they could have existed in uscany a centuryearlier. Tus it becomes more plausible that his inormant Maddalena1may have presented Leland with this character even as late as the 1890s.

I call my methodology archaeology o legend, borrowing the term romthe work o Italian ethnologist Ernesto De Martino, whose grounded

historicism allowed him to examine Italian vernacular religion in orderto understand how Christianity had imposed itsel on pre-existing beliesystems (De Martino, 2005 [1961], 7). De Martino saw olklore as ahistorical document through which to reconstruct the pastnot as asurvival but as

a document o a single history: that o the religious civilizationin which it is a relic, or o the religious civilization in which itremains or is more or less prooundly remolded (ibid.).

1 In reality Margherita alenti or aluti; see Robert Mathiesen, Charles G. Leland andthe Witches o Italy, 30. For the identiication o her probable last name, I am indebtedto R S Grimassi, who ound evidence o it in Leland s private papers housed in theLibrary o Congress.


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Mine is thereore an historical project, but one or which I am usingboth historical and ethnographic materials and approaches. My goalis to remove layer upon layer, beginning with the most recent one, to

reveal the roots and underpinnings o modern narrative materials. Indoing so, I am not arguing or the existence o survivals, or implying thatthe meaning o these narratives has not changed through the ages, butrather demonstrating how legend material adapts to local socio-culturalcontexts while still maintaining a recognisable connection to its past.

Sa Rejusta

Tis story begins in Bessude, a small town in the highlands o northwestSardinia, in the summer o 1986. As a young graduate student, I wasdoing eldwork on traditional religious estivals and social change, butI kept an ear open or local narratives, especially legends. Indeed, itwas difcult to avoid them, as this area is particularly rich in stories.In the process o listening to and recording these accounts, I came tohear about a character known as sa Rejusta or sa Rajusta. Tis beingwas said to live under the Craxtu de Funari, a large boulder overlookingthe Bidighinzu basin, rom which she would emerge only once a year,

on the night o July 31, when she would y about the streets o the town,snatching and carrying away any children she happened to nd. Onecould keep her at bay by leaving a plate o pasta on the window sill; theogress would stop to eat it and ll hersel up, diminishing her appetiteor any errant children that might come her way.

[ fg 2 : Te Craxtu de Funari, dwelling-place o sa Rejusta, in

the territory o Bessude (Sardinia, Italy) photo: the author]


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It was clear that at the time o my eldwork, Sa Rejusta belonged to thecategory o nursery bogeys: imaginary beings whose main purpose is torighten children rom doing things their parents and caretakers would

rather they did not do. In act, or many o my eld consultants, thereis little dierence between sa Rejusta and other nursery bogeys, such assas mamas (the mothers): sa mama de su sole (the mother o the sun,who appears at midday on hot summer days to snatch children whoreuse to take a nap), sa mama de su ventu (the mother o the wind,who serves the same purpose in the winter) and sa mama de sa funtana(the mother o the spring, who pulls in children who lean too ar intodrinking troughs and wells).Sa Rejusta is supposed to righten children rom staying up past theirbedtime on short summer nights when the sky is light well past theirbedtime. But by the 1980s, the ear o these personages was ading evenamong the towns youngest children under the inuence o education,television and globalisation. oday, many children in Bessude have neverheard o sa Rejusta or sas mamas, probably because under the inuenceo psychologically-based child rearing methods, rightening children intocompliance is considered traumatic and harmul to their development.

From the beginning, I was ascinated with sa Rejusta. Who was she,and how did she get under the Craxtu de Funari? Why did she go atersmall children? What was her story, and what was the meaning o herunusual name? I tried going to the towns eldest citizens or answers to myquestions, but got little clarication. Sa Rejusta means the lobster, oneexplained to me; and indeed, the Italian wordaragosta gets rendered in theLogudoran2 dialect o Sardo as something likesarajusta. But this word is

not indigenous to Logudoro; even then, I knew instinctively that it was aolk etymology. Sa Rejusta was not and could not be a giant lobster; SaRejusta, I suspected, belonged to a much older layer o cultural material.

It was schoolteacher Marianna Nieddu, a connoisseur o local olklore,who rst helped shed light on this legendary being by telling me a ullerversion o her story.

Sa Rejusta was a sort o witch, she explained. On the night oJuly 31 she would leave her home under the Craxtu de Funariand make hersel very small. She entered houses rom thekeyhole, and she would check to see i marriageable girls in the

2 he northwestern section o the island is known as the Logudoro; Bessude is located inthis area.

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household had spun and woven enough or their dowries. I youhad worked hard, she wouldnt harm you, but i you were lazy,she would punish you by chopping o your fngers. And there

was a rhyme that I cant remember now, where according to howmuch you had spun and woven, she would cut o so many fngers(interview with Marianna Nieddu, 22 August 1986).

Te way to keep away this rightul being was to leave a plate o lentilsor wheat on the door sill; the witch would be orced to stop and countthem all, which would take her until dawn. Once the sun rose she wouldbe compelled to return to her hiding place under the stone.

Here we nd well-known motis recognisable rom European olklore:the malicious night-witch who can shrink hersel and enter throughthe keyhole, and who, when presented with tiny objects such as seedsor grains o sand, is orced to count them, and thus thwarted romcausing harm. In the neighboring region around the towns o orralbaand Bonnanaro, sa Rejusta has a slightly dierent name: Sorre Justa,the just sister. While this made more sense to me linguistically, itbegged the question: i a cannibalistic character who snatched children

and chopped o young womens ngers was the just sister, who was theunjust sister, and what did she do? In Budduso and surrounding towns,the same spirit is called mama Erodas (mother Herodias) (urchi,2001, 97). Tis detail provides us with an important rst key to theidentity o sa Rejusta, by linking her not only to the other supernaturalmothers, but to the biblical gure o Herodias and the well-developedlegend complex surrounding this character in medieval Italian olklore.My argument, then, is that Bessudes sa Rejusta derives rom an earlier

cluster o legends about night-roaming, supernatural emale gureslinked with spinning and weaving, magic, thejanas or airies, and withmeting out justice: rewarding the dutiul and punishing the wicked.But Herodias hersel is probably a medieval Christian interpretationo what might have been an earlier supernatural gure with ties to theolklore o northern Europe, whose story entered Sardinia during theearly Middle Ages and became syncretised with indigenous legends odangerous emale spirits. Te remainder o this chapter is dedicatedto revealing this history by examining each layer o olklore, as anarchaeologist might, in order to contextualise it and understand itssignicance.


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Herodias and Diana

During the Middle Ages, beginning around the 9th century, a number

o ecclesiastical documents report legends about night-time spiritualprocessions led by a supernatural gure in the areas which are nownorthern Italy, southern France and western Germany. In the narra-tives and their associated belies, these processions would enter houses,consume ood which would magically regenerate, sing, dance andgenerally disport themselves. Te leader would answer questions orher ollowers and dispense advice about healing herbs and the locationo lost or stolen objects. I the assembly ound the household in good

order, they would bestow blessings and good luck, but i they ounddisorder and lth, they would punish the householders.

While these were clearly legends incorporating antastical material,some women actually conessed to participating in these gatheringsat night, while their bodies lay asleep in bed (Cohen, 1975, 206-24;Ginzburg, 1989, 68-78). In the majority o early documents, believersreer to the leader o the spiritual assemblies by a variety o names,including Madonna Oriente (Milady o the East), la signora del

giuoco (the lady o the game), Richella (Richie, the lady o riches),Abundia, Satia, Holda, Perchta, Bensozia (rom Latin bona socia, thegood associate), or Bensoria (rom Latin bona soror, the good sister)(Ginzburg, 1989:67-71). However, beginning with the earliest report othese legends, in the work o Regino, Abbot o Prm in 899 CE, clericsassociate the leaders with two gures rom the New estament: Dianaand Herodias.

Citing the Canon Episcopi, a document attributed to the Council oAncyra in 314 CE, but probably a later orgery since this is its rstmention in ecclesiastical records, Regino complains that many believethat Diana is a goddess or a queen who holds one third o the earthunder her charge. He admonishes bishops to warn their ocksagainst the alse belies o women who think they ollow Diana thepagan goddess, or Herodias on their night-time travels, riding outon the backs o animals over long distances, ollowing the orders o

their mistress who called them to service on certain appointed nights(Bonomo, 1959, 19; Caro Baroja, 1961, 62; Cohen, 1975, 211). Tesewarnings, along with the names o Herodias and Diana, are repeatedin the encyclicals o Raterius o Liegi, Bishop o Verona (890-974 CE),


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Burchard o Worms (950-1025), and numerous later ecclesiasticalwriters, eventually passing into the body o canon law (Cohen, 1975,212). In 1310 the Council o reviri combined the two names, creating

Herodiana (Ginzburg, 1989, 67).

Historian Carlo Ginzburg argues that churchmens identication othe leader o womens night-time spiritual assemblies with Diana orHerodias was an attempt to render understandable within an eccle-siastical ramework a body o olk belies that did not conorm to theknowledge base and expectations o the clergy. It was the clerics who,in their encyclicals and conessors manuals, drew the connectionbetween the leaders o spiritual assemblies and gures more well-known in an ecclesiastical context, such as Herodias and Diana.Ginzburg writes:

[]he doubt nevertheless remains that churchmen and bishops(as well as later inquisitors) were orcing the belies they encoun-tered into existing structures. Te nod to Diana, the pagangoddess, or example, leads to the suspicion o an interpretatioromana, o a distorting lens derived rom ancient religion (1989,

68; my translation).

It is no accident that both gures o Herodias and Diana are drawnrom the New estament, the principal body o knowledge upon whichmedieval ecclesiastical knowledge was built, and that both are negativecharacters therein.

Herodias, or Erodiade in Italian, appears in the Gospel o St. Matthew

as the sister-in-law o King Herod (Matthew 14:3-12). She hated Johnthe Baptist and wanted him dead, so she concocted a plan to kill him.She persuaded her daughter Salome to dance or Herod in exchangeor the head o the saint. Te plan worked: Salome danced, Herod hadthe head o St. John delivered to her on a platter, and that is the end othe story, at least in the gospels. But several early Christian legendsexplain how when Salome saw St. Johns head brought beore her, shebegan to weep and repent her sin in a t o remorse. A gust o windissued rom the saints mouth and blew the amous dancer into theair, where she is condemned to wander orever in penance (Cattabiani,1994, 208; Cohen, 1975, 212).


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While we know o Salome rom historical accounts, the Gospelsactually never mention her by name; she is simply known as thedaughter o Herodias (Mark 6:17-28 and Matthew 14:3-12). Since

in Roman usage, the wives and daughters o a house were commonlyknown by the name o the male head o the household, it is easy to seehow over time, Salome became conused with her mother Herodias.Neither is a positive gure; in act, Herodias is arguably the wickedestwoman mentioned in the New estament. Tis act is critical to thelink which developed between Herodias, the goddess Diana, andthe legends about supernatural ying women that medieval clericsattempted to quell.Diana is the only pagan goddess mentioned in the New estament,in Acts 19: 1-41, which tells the story o Pauls journey to Ephesus,where stood the great temple o Artemis, whom the gospel calls bythe name o her Roman counterpart, Diana. Artemis and Dianawere associated with the moon, and in one o her aspects, Diana wasconated with the Greek Hecate, the protector o witches. Hecatewas also the queen o the spirits o the dead, present at tombs andat the hearth, where pre-Roman peoples buried their ancestors. At

night she would appear at crossroads, ollowed by a train o spirits othe unquiet dead those who had died beore their time or in unjustcircumstances (Caro Baroja, 1961, 26).

Tus, or medieval clerics, not only was Diana a pagan goddess, shewas also one associated with the worst kind o spiritual activity. Tisconnection to witchcrat and the spirits o the dead was crucial in helpingclerics censure belies in the night-time spiritual journeys, arguing both

that the spirits were evil and that the experiences o women who reportedjourneying with them were inspired by demons (Cohen, 1975, 217).

By linking the leaders o the spiritual assemblies to Herodias andDiana, medieval churchmen clearly strove not only to insert secularolk belies into a Christian religious structure, but to rame them asa orm o pagan idolatry, and thus condemn them. As C. S. Watkinshas argued about medieval English belies, despite the act that witha ew exceptions, medieval Europe was ully Christianised by the10th century, medieval clerics oten wrote as i paganism were a realthreat largely because the theological materials rom which they drewderived rom an earlier period during which paganism was still alive.


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Tey transerred these reerences to the non-standard practices theyobserved in their own time, generally in an attempt to censure them(Watkins, 2008).

However, we must not deduce rom this that the belies actually were aorm o pagan religion. Rather, they blended motis rom earlier beliesystems with material drawn rom a contemporary context, as olklorealways does. What they do represent is a olk or vernacular under-standing o the world, in contrast to an ecclesiastical one.

I the leaders o the night-time spiritual assemblies rom medievalolklore were neither Diana the pagan goddess, nor Herodias theNew estament villain, they were certainly based on gures drawnrom pre-Christian legendry. We can gain insight into their nature byexamining the names given to them in the reports o the clerical authorsand the conessions o their parishioners.

Burchard o Worms gives the alternative name o Holda, a characterprominent in German olklore right down to the time o the Grimmbrothers in the early 19th century. Holda (Frau Holle, Hulda, Holle, etc.;

also known as Perchta or Berchta) was originally a pagan goddess o thewinter solstice and the rebirth o the year (Cohen, 1975, 213). She was asupernatural, maternal being linked to both wells and caves (and thus anearthly otherworld) and ying through the air. She was oten associatedwith winter; she was active during the twelve days o Christmas, andsnowakes were said to be eathers alling rom her goose-down cloak(Motz, 1984). She had both beautiul and rightening aspects; she couldappear as an attractive young woman, or as an ugly, long-nosed hag with

huge teeth who terried children, but she was generally only aggressivei angered. What angered her most was laziness and slovenliness inwomens work, particularly spinning and weaving, o which she was thepatron. She was also the protector o children, who were said to comerom her. When she ew through the air, she was accompanied by a traino souls o the dead, especially unbaptised children and those who diedbeore their time. Her visits, however, brought good luck, prosperity andruitulness to the land (Cohen, ibid.).

Indeed, the other names o this spiritual visitor oten make reerenceto her associations with ertility and prosperity o all kinds: the FrenchAbundia (rom the Latin abundantia, plenty) and Satia (rom the


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Latin satius, ull or plentiul) and the Italian Richella (rom theItalian ricco, rich) clearly illustrate this connection. Some o herother names suggest instead the euphemisms or another goddess with

related, but somewhat dierent associations. In the 1200s, Vincento Beauvais writes in the Speculum morale that some deluded womencall Herodias and Diana bonae res, good things. Te Roman de laRose calls the ollowers o Abonde bonnes dames, the good ladies. TeBenandanti (good walkers) o Friuli paid homage to a majestic lady,called the good lady.

Ginzburg calls attention to the propitiatory nature o these appella-tions, comparing them with the epithets obona dea andplacida, whichreerred to none other than Hecate, goddess o witchcrat and mistresso the dead, who also ew through the air at the head o a train o souls(Ginzburg, 1989, 77). In the post-Roman world, with its mixture ocultures, olklore about Hecate, the queen o the dead, and Holda, thebringer o ertility who also rode at the head o a procession o souls,may have begun to merge, developing both stable trans-geographicpatterns and local characteristics.

Clearly, we are dealing with a very archaic body o material, whoseorigins lie in a pre-Christian worldview in which the spirits o the dead,led by a supernatural emale gure, visit households where they receiveoerings o ood and drink; i all is in order, they bring ertility andplenty to the homes they visit.

Whatever indigenous, local names were attributed to the leaders othese spiritual assemblies in the various European vernaculars, by the

13th

century, their identication with the gures o Diana and Herodias,accomplished through the inuence o the Church, was complete.

Te Ladies o the Night, the Fairies and the Dead

Like their leader, the spirits in the procession led by Diana or Herodiaswere known by a number o names: bonae res (good things), dominaenocturnae (ladies o the night) orfatae (airies). As Ginzburg arguesabove, these appellations suggest a certain euphemistic qualityindicating the ambiguous nature o the spirits; it is reminiscent oEnglish-language traditions in which airies are reerred to as thegood people. Indeed, a number o scholars have argued that the spirits


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which came to be known as airies in English originally were the soulso the dead.

In European olklore, airies and the dead have a number o commoncharacteristics: they exist at the margins o the human world, canappear and disappear at will, are oten associated with ancient burials,reward and punish human actions, can enter human homes to east,and indulge in pastimes such as dancing in a circle at night.3 As DianePurkiss writes,

Fairies share many characteristics o the dead; in somestories they are the dead, or the dead are with them, in othersit is dicult or teller and reader alike to tell the diferencebetween a ghost or a revenant and a airy. [] But the linkbetween airies and the returned dead is not a conusion; like the dead who come back to east in their homes, theairies are both a society separate rom human society andcrucially intertwined with it. Like the dead, they are oreignand amiliar; like the dead, they need gits rom the living, andgive gits back; like the dead, they can be angered. Like the

dead, they are both present and absent (Purkiss, 2000, 87).

We can thereore conclude that some material which appears in bothecclesiastical literature rom the 9th century onwards, and in certainconessions and trial reports rom the period o the witchcrat persecu-tions, is rooted in a body o legendry with very deep roots in Europeanolklore. Tese legends o a procession o spirits headed by a super-natural emale leader may hearken back to a layer o narrative material

concerned with the dead and their relationship to the living. It was stillvery much alive in Sardinia as late as the 1980s.

I recall rom my early eldwork how the towns elderly residents otencomplained o the night-time racket made by young people returningrom parties and estivals, reerring to it as su traigozzu (the big train).Upon closer questioning, this train turned out to be none other thanthe procession o condemned souls; it was said to be noisy because eachspirit dragged along a heavy chain consisting o the sins it had accumu-lated during lie.

3 See the Sardinian legend about the dead dancing in a circle and almost pulling ashepherd into their world in Magliocco, wo Madonnas, 95.


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Another name or this procession was sa regula morte (the host othe dead), and in Gallura, the northeastern part o the island, it wascalled sa frotta de Erode (the host o Herodias), preserving the link

to the medieval legend (urchi, 2001, 224). It was said that therewere certain people in the village who had the preternatural ability tosee this procession by going to a crossroads at noon or midnight andlooking over their shoulder. Te spirits o the townspeople who weredoomed to die within the year would appear in the train.

Tose gited (or cursed) with this ability were known as bidemortos,[those who] see the dead. But even townspeople who lacked thiscapacity interacted with the dead on a regular basis. It was stillcustomary at the time to take oerings o ood to the cemetery duringthe period known as sos mortos, the dead, between 30 October and 2November. Many villagers also set a place at table or their beloveddead at this time, putting out a meal or them. Among the appro-priate oerings at these spiritual meals were two types o cookies:sas tirikkas, made with grape must let over rom the wine-makingprocess, essentially identical to those the ancient Greeks oered toHecate, and sas ankas de kane, dog-legs, which were indeed shaped

like a dog leg, and may once have been an oblique reerence to Hecatessacred hounds.

Te souls o the dead were expected during the period o sos mortos,whether as part o a ghostly procession, or as individuals; I once saw awoman oer a meal to a Gypsy (Rom) who had come begging throughtown. I dont normally oer them anything, she explained, but seeingas I recently lost my husband, and this being sos mortos and all, you

never know who might be coming to your door. Te implicationwas that wandering souls could appear even in the guise o strangersduring this liminal period o the year, and that the oering o oodwas necessary to the maintenance o harmonious relations between theliving and the dead.

Tere are said to be in Sardinia beings calledjanas, whose name meansollowers o Diana, linking them directly to the medieval legends oroaming spirits. Tey are said to live in Neolithic shat tombs, known asdomus de janas, homes o the airies, or in caves, both locations o prehis-toric burials. Teyare expert spinners and weavers, and can interact withand in some cases even marry humans (Liori, 1992, 107-111). Like the


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Romanian iele, who are led by Irodeasa (Kligman, 1981, 54), Sardinianjanas have as their patroness Araja or Arada (urchi, 2000, 78), whosename is a version o the medieval Italian Erodiade. It is in act the

rendering in Sardo o a hypothetical Italian word Aradia.

Tis is a persuasive piece o evidence suggesting that at some time, acharacter called Aradia must have existed in Italian olklore, and thatwhen her stories were brought to Sardinia, her name, as well as detailso her legend, acquired a Sardinian avor. In some cases, the leadero the janas is called sAraja dimoniu, Aradia the demon, a reectiono the demonisation o the legend at the hands o medieval clerics. IsAraja dimoniu is the leader o the airies, it is not an unreasonable leapto hypothesise that at some point in Sardinian legendry, this guresplit into two, acquiring a counterpart who was not demonic, butrighteous, rewarding industriousness and punishing laziness in youngwomen who were spinning and weaving. Te name o this spirit wassAraja justa, the just Aradia and here we have the likely antecedento sa Rejusta (urchi, 2001, 79).

Legends o Herodias and Diana most likely entered Sardinia during the

12th 13th centuries, when the city-states o Pisa and Genoa vied orcontrol over the island. Tis was exactly the time during which theselegends were widely diused in continental Italy, and when clerics werewriting encyclicals warning against the dangers o believing these tales.In act, it is not unlikely that it was through the inuence o clericsthemselves that the legend was imported. By the 15th century it couldbe ound in Sardinian conessionals (urchi, 2001, 84).What seems not to have happened in Sardinia is the blending o this

legend complex with the emergent myth o the diabolical sabbat;medieval Sardinian witch trial records lack conessions rom womenwho reported going out at night with Aradia (Hennigsen, 1993; Pinna,2000). Instead, sAraja justa seems to have hybridised, over centuries,with indigenous legendary characters like sas mamas (the mothers),who may be versions o pre-Christian spirits or deities connected withthe sun, moon and water. She also merged with legends about night-roaming beings o a very dierent kind.

Alongside legends o benecent emale spirits ying about at night atthe head o a procession, there existed throughout Europe since ancienttimes legends o a very dierent sort o creature: the malecent night-

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witch. Tese women were thought to enter homes at night in sprit ormto harm the inhabitants by sucking blood, cooking and eating the bodieso their victims beore restoring to them the appearance o lie. Teir

victims eventually became ill and died.

Tese stories are related to the Classical Roman legends o striae,women who could transorm into birds o prey to y out at night andeat their victims, oten inants, in their beds. Teir victims otenappeared healthy, but over a period o time sickened and died: theirsouls were thought to have been eatenand, in some cases, cooked bythe malecent beings (Bonomo, 1959, 33; Cohen, 1975, 206-8).

Analogous legends certainly existed in Sardinia well into the 20 thcentury. Sardinian olklore distinguishes clearly between the purelymalecent coga (literally cook, or vampire-like witch) or surbile andthejana (airy). Cogas and their counterparts, surbiles, are uniormlymalevolent. Tey prey on newborns and unbaptised inants, enteringhomes at night through the keyhole by transorming themselves intoinsects, or by becoming as ne as a thread (urchi, 2001, 87-8). Someallegedly anoint themselves with a special oil to eect this transor-

mation (ibid.) Te coga or surbile is oten unaware o her own actions;one legend tells o a grandmother who unwittingly sucked the blood oher own grandchild (urchi, 2001, 99).

In other legends, however, cogas and surbiles appear to belong to asociety o malecent witches, and can initiate others into it. urchicites a legend reported by Piero Maria Cossu in which a young girl isinitiated by a household servant who is secretly a coga. Te older witch

instructs the young initiate in the use o ying ointment, and warns hernot to be araid while ying, and especially not to cross hersel whenpassing over a church or graveyard. But on her rst ight, the younggirl does so instinctively, and immediately alls to the ground. Te nextmorning she is discovered by the priest curled in a oetal position on theground, naked and weeping. He returns her unharmed to her amily,but the servant who is a coga is discovered and burned alive or witchcrat(urchi, 2001, 122). o deend against the dangerous coga or surbile, itis necessary to leave barley or wheat on the doorstep, where she will beorced to count the grains (urchi, 2001, 97) a moti now ound in thebelie complex surrounding sa Rejusta.


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But sa Rejusta stands somewhere in between Araja, the queen o thejanas, and the evil coga or surbile. She has elements in common withanother olk character called sa gioviana (the Tursdaynian), a emale

spirit who would enter the homes o women on Tursdays, when theywere spinning, oering them magical assistance so they could spingreat quantities (urchi 2001, 86). She could also punish women whowere lazy spinners, who started their tasks late and did not spin orweave enough or their dowries (urchi, 2001, 93). She could be keptaway by placing a ew grains o barley or chickpeas near the doorway.

Legends o the gioviana recall the 14th century witch trial reports chron-icled by Carlo Ginzburg and other historians in the cases o Sibilliaand Pierina o Milan, who were called to service by their mistress,Signora Oriente, on Tursdays to participate in the spiritual assem-blies and easts (Bonomo, 1959; Caro Baroja, 1961; Muraro Vaiani,1976; Ginzburg, 1989). We can see that in many ways, the legend othe gioviana recalls that o sa Rejusta. Both supernatural gures areconcerned with spinning and weaving, and with the punishment owomen who have not spun sufcient quantities; both can be kept at bayby being orced to count grains or seeds placed in the doorway. Both

seem to draw elements rom the olklore o Holda, the night-yingpatron o spinning, weaving and ertility.

It is also clear that historically, these legends unctioned as a orm o socialcontrol to underscore appropriate behavior or young women. While notas severely cloistered as women in Sicily and other parts o the southernMediterranean, until the 20th century, unmarried women in Sardiniawere expected to conne their actions to the domestic sphere. While men

brought to marriage a house, land and livestock, women were responsibleor providing all o the urnishings or the household, including beddingand oor coverings. Tese were traditionally made at home rom theproducts o an agro-pastoral economy, which included wool and ax.Spinning and weaving were thus considered crucial skills or Sardinianwomen. It was typical or young women to begin learning them aschildren, and to work on their dowries rom an early age. A ne dowry wasan important asset or a young woman, who oten brought only that to hermarriage in the islands harsh and impoverished economy. As late as themid-20th century, a marriage procession o horse- and donkey-carts borehousehold urnishings rom the brides house to that o the new couple,where the brides handiwork was displayed or neighbours to admire as


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over the course o several days. Fine handiwork was not only an essentialdomestic skill; it could raise a womans status in the eyes o her in-lawsand neighbours. No wonder, then, that there was social pressure on young

women to produce, and to produce well and copiously. Te elderly aunto Marianna Nieddu, the young woman rom whom I collected the mostcomplete version o the legend o sa Rejusta in 1986, conessed to beingterried, as a young girl, that the old witch would maim her because shehad not spun enough.

By the 19th century, Herodias and Diana as leaders o the ladies o thenight had vanished rom Sardinian oral tradition, replaced instead by thegioviana and sa Rejusta, who helped industrious girls ulll their obliga-tions, but threatened lazy ones with brutal retribution.From this very brie study, two important conclusions can be drawn. Terst, which will be o interest to historians o contemporary Paganism,is that at some point, there was a character known in Italian olkloreas Aradia, derived rom medieval legends o Herodias and linked withnight ights, entry into homes, spinning, weaving and magic. Whileshe seems to have disappeared rom the olklore o uscany and Emilia,

where Charles Leland reportedly ound her in the late 19th century, shestill exists in Sardinia, albeit in a localised orm. Te second, broaderconclusion underscores the work o legend scholars, and concerns theability o legend narrators to shape narrative material to reect localconcerns and adapt to local patterns. In this, sAraja justa is not justHerodias in Sardinia, but an exquisitely Sardinian character.

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