Epiphany: Italian Traditions

Twelve days after Christmas on the 6th January is the Christian Festival of the Epiphany.  The word derives from the Greek and means 'the manifestation' or 'the appearing' and Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Jesus to the world through the visit of the magi who journeyed from the East to bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and to worship Him.

Epiphany tableau, St.Edmund's Church, Castleton, Derbyshire

In Italy the feast of Epiphany (Epifania) is a national holiday.  The night beforehand Italian children await La Befana (an old woman) who is expected to come and leave some sweets in the stocking they have left out for her. According to a story, the three wise men stopped at her house on their way to Bethlehem.  La Befana was asked to join them on their journey.  She refused because she was too busy cleaning her house. Later she changed her mind, set off with a basket of sweets in the hope of joining the wise men, but she was too late and she never found her way to the Christ Child despite stopping at each house, giving out sweets and asking where she could find Him. Every year on the night before Epiphany she still visits children's homes and leaves her gifts.

In our family we have followed the tradition of giving some small gifts of sweets to our children and

grandchildren at Epiphany.

It's very quiet in our house!

Over the Festive season we've had several parties in the Italian style ending with biscotti, panettone and prosecco.

Today the house seems very quiet as our guests have gone home, but we have some good memories of our time together over the Christmas holidays. For us the Christmas season continues until Epiphany when we think of the scriptures of the wise men from the east coming to worship Jesus and bringing significant gifts. Personally, we re-dedicate our lives as a gift to God.

Continuing with our outing to Castleton in Derbyshire on New Year's Day.....

After our time by the fire in the Castle Inn we walked over the lane to visit St. Edmund's Church.

The church is dedicated to St. Edmund, King of East Anglia, who was martyred in AD 869.

There's a window depicting St. Edmund (on the right) in the church.

The church dates back to the 12th century at least.  William Peveril had been given the land by his father, William the Conqueror, in order to build a castle on the hill and the village gradually grew at the foot.

During the Middle Ages the whole was enclosed by an earthwork called the Town Ditch and the stone church was built on a mound in this enclosed settlement.  The custodian of the castle held the patronage so that it was known as the church of Peak Castle.

A view of the castle from the churchyard.

The tower has not been altered since the 15th century apart from a small entrance to the belfry on the exterior southern wall.  On 29th May, Garland Day, the pinnacles are decked with oak boughs and a garland is hung on the central pinnacle after being processed around the town.

The interior of the church is beautiful. There are 17th century oak box pews and lancet windows. The arch between the nave and the chancel has a Norman arch and the stone is carved with a chevron design.

The belfry is reached by a spiral staircase with a gallery between the tower and the west end of the nave.

The Victorian stained glass east window behind the altar shows Jesus as the Good Shepherd and preaching to the disciples.

There are seven windows in the nave with grisaille lights (different shades of glass set at angles to reflect the light).

The pew lamps are over a hundred years old and were converted from cranberry glass oil lamps to electricity in the 1960s.

In the children's corner are several crib scenes, which I will feature again on another post.  This one has knitted figures and there has been a rota so that the children could take the crib scene home over the Christmas period. 

New Year's Day Walk (1)

With days of relentless wind and rain it has been difficult to get out for a long walk, but as the sun broke through yesterday morning we put our plan to take a drive over to Castleton in Derbyshire into action.  Although it's a short drive from where we live, by the time we arrived in Castleton the weather had changed (as it often does in the High Peak area) and there was a steady drizzle of rain.    I have a booklet giving the details of suggested walks around this historic town, which is famous for the mining of Blue John stone, but yesterday was not the time to wander far. Even the ducks on the banks of the river were not that enthusiastic about swimming in the fast-flowing water. We went into the information centre, followed the mill stream into town, spent some time in the cosy Castle Inn before visiting the ancient church of St. Edmund.

                                                                     Peakshole Water

                                                                      The Mill Stream

            Castle Inn             

                                           
                                                                          Peveril Castle