Benandanti
A sixteenth and seventeenth century group in Friuli, northern Italy, who said they fought witches in spirit to protect the harvest.
Also: good walkers, friuli benandanti, night battles
The benandanti, good walkers, were men and women of the Friuli region of north-east Italy, whose cases came before the Inquisition from 1575. They said that, born with a caul, they were called at night on certain days of the year, in spirit, to fight witches with fennel stalks against the witches' sorghum stalks, to protect crops and wine. The historian Carlo Ginzburg found the records and published them in 1966 as The Night Battles. Over decades, inquisitors pressed them to describe their meetings in the terms of the witches' sabbath, and the benandanti gradually did. Scholars debate whether it shows a survival of older agrarian belief or something shaped by the court. The Inquisition's records are the only source.