The Benandanti of Friuli

Record summary

The benandanti were people in Friuli who told inquisitors that they left their bodies or traveled in spirit on certain nights to fight witches and protect crops. Some accounts involve animal-like or nocturnal imagery, but the core issue is visionary travel and communal fertility belief rather than straightforward bodily shape-changing. The records became central to Carlo Ginzburg’s study of agrarian night-fighting traditions and the formation of witchcraft categories. The evidence is mediated by inquisitorial questioning and changing terminology. AI-recalled; source quality 5; corroboration 0.