La Befana: The Good Witch of Christmas by Pamela King

The once beautiful woman swept the floor, sighed, and started sweeping again. He can’t be dead she thought to herself, not my beautiful baby.  Grief over the loss of her beloved son so recently after being widowed, began to age her. Some say she went mad. 

In an endeavour to eliminate the child professed to become the new king, Herod had ordered the death of all male children born in the year of Jesus. The soldiers had rampaged through her village and taken her baby boy along with all others.

In her sorrow she became obsessive about keeping her home spotlessly clean, sweeping the floor incessantly. One day three wise men knocked at her door. Although she was poor with only rags for clothes and broken shoes, she made them welcome in her humble, but cosy, cottage giving them food and a room for the night. They told her they were following a bright star that would lead them to the new born baby Jesus and showed her the special gifts of gold, incense and myrrh they carried for the Christ child.

The next morning, they thanked her for her hospitality and invited her to accompany them. She declined saying she was too busy with her housework and she had nothing worthy to give the special child.

Delusional with grief, she wondered if this baby could be her own, saved from the evil King Herod’s cruel plans. She left her home, still with her broom in her hand, to catch up to the wise men, taking all her son’s clothes and toys. She also bundled up food she had prepared. 

Magically, she began to fly on her broomstick and eventually found Jesus.  Realising this was not her child she presented him, and his parents, with her son’s belongings and the food as gifts.

By this time, her faced had aged more with many lines and hair had turned completely grey. Joseph, the child’s father, looked at the face of this stranger bearing gifts and wondered about her past and what extreme sorrow she had suffered.

Delighted at the gifts, and in gratitude to her generosity, Jesus and his father blessed her and gave her a gift in return. For one night a year, and for all eternity, she would be honorary mother of every child as if they were her own.

The twelve days of Christmas finish with the Epiphany, a celebration of renewal, on 6^th January. Overjoyed with her blessing, this is the time she takes to her broom delivering gifts to every child; blessing good children and punishing bad ones. She became known as La Befana from the Roman dialect pronunciation of the Italian name for the religious festival, Epifania. 

On the eve of the epiphany she climbs down chimneys to find stocking hanging near the fireplace. From her basket to places candy, fruit, toys and books in the stockings of the good children goes; but naughty ones receive coal, onions or garlic.  In return the families leave wine and cakes for her.

A smiling but very old woman with a slight hunch, she still wears rags with colourful patches covered with soot from climbing down the chimneys. 

La Befana does not like to be seen so here is a word of warning. If you ever spot her on her rounds do not look at her or she will smack you across the face with the end of her broom.

Australian Twist on a Classic Christmas Story

'Twas the night before Christmas; there wasn't a sound. 

Not a possum was stirring; no-one was around.

We'd left on the table some tucker and beer,

Hoping that Santa Claus soon would be here;

We children were snuggled up safe in our beds,

While dreams of pavlova danced 'round in our heads;

And Mum in her nightie, and Dad in his shorts,

Had just settled down to watch TV sports.

When outside the house a mad ruckus arose;

Loud squeaking and banging woke us from our doze.

We ran to the screen door, peeked cautiously out,

Snuck onto the deck, then let out a shout.

Guess what had woken us up from our snooze,

But a rusty old Ute pulled by eight mighty 'roos.

The cheerful man driving was giggling with glee,

And we both knew at once who this plump bloke must be.

Now, I'm telling the truth it's all dinki-di,

Those eight kangaroos fairly soared through the sky.

Santa leaned out the window to pull at the reins,

And encouraged the 'roos, by calling their names.

'Now, Kylie! Now, Kirsty! Now, Shazza and Shane!

On Kipper! On, Skipper! On, Bazza and Wayne!

Park up on that water tank. Grab a quick drink,

I'll scoot down the gum tree. Be back in a wink!'

So up to the tank those eight kangaroos flew,

With the Ute full of toys, and Santa Claus too.

He slid down the gum tree and jumped to the ground,

Then in through the window he sprang with a bound.

He had bright sunburned cheeks and a milky white beard.

A jolly old joker was how he appeared.

He wore red stubby shorts and old thongs on his feet,

And a hat of deep crimson as shade from the heat.

His eyes - bright as opals - Oh! How they twinkled!

And, like a goanna, his skin was quite wrinkled!

His shirt was stretched over a round bulging belly

Which shook when he moved, like a plate full of jelly.

A fat stack of prezzies he flung from his back,

And he looked like a swaggie unfastening his pack.

He spoke not a word, but bent down on one knee,

To position our goodies beneath the yule tree.

Surfboard and footy-ball shapes for us two.

And for Dad, tongs to use on the new barbeque.

A mysterious package he left for our Mum,

Then he turned and he winked and he held up his thumb;

He strolled out on deck and his 'roos came on cue;

Flung his sack in the back and prepared to shoot through.

He bellowed out loud as they swooped past the gates-

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, and goodonya, MATES!'

More on Language and Writing

I recently posted a blog titled As Writers, Do We Need to be Perfect with our Language All the Time?
 

Continuing on from that blog, there is another aspect of provincial or regional writing I am covering here and would really like your input.

As authors our target market is world-wide but those us that live in a country not dominant in the publishing world (in my case Australia) we often have our own set of problems communicating with readers.

Although we speak English, we have our own jargon and slang. Readers may also not be familiar with our cities and towns, geography or landmarks.

One particular area that varies around the world is weights and measures. UK and Australia use metric while the USA use the imperial measurements and, in some cases, these can vary from those previous used in UK etc.

In the case of the book I am writing, the life of the lady who is the subject of the biography spans 1928 to 2002. During that time Australia converted from pounds, shillings and pence to decimal currency and from imperial measurements to metric. It is similar in Europe with the conversion to Euro.

So, dear readers, here are my questions:

Does slang and jargon need to be written in an ‘international’ way or does that lose the uniqueness of place and people.

Should we provide maps and images containing information about the scene of the story? Are descriptive passages enough? Or should we leave it to the reader to search out unfamiliar information.

Do we just use the terms we are familiar with or do we add explanations such as conversions tables, footnotes and appendices? 

Does the importance of attention to this detail apply more to non fiction than fiction?