The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year (23 page)

There are Witches in the Air 183

enlarge on a photocopier. (You don’t have to cut out the window in the side wall; you can use a water bottle cap to cut it out of the dough later.) Cut out all your template pieces and set them aside before you make your dough.

Lebkuchen Witch’s House Figure 1

184 There are Witches in the Air

Step 2: The Dough

Ingredients:

5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1½ cups sugar

2 eggs, gently beaten

Zest of one lemon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon nutmeg

1½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ cups ground almonds

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 Tablespoons milk

Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Stir in

eggs, lemon zest, spices and almonds. Add flour and baking powder a little at a time, adding the milk as the dough stiff-ens. You will have to work the last half cup of flour in with your hands. When it’s all mixed, shape it into a loaf, wrap in plastic and refrigerate until you are ready to cut out and bake the pieces of your house. If you’re ready right now,

proceed to Step 3.

Step 3: Cutting and Baking

If you have refrigerated the dough, leave it out at room

temperature for at least an hour before beginning. When

you are ready, preheat oven to 425 F.

Roll the dough out ¼ inch thickness. Place your tem-

plate pieces on the dough and cut around each with a sharp knife. Placing the template pieces as close to each other and as close to the edges of the dough as possible will mini-

There are Witches in the Air 185

mize the number of times you need to roll out the dough.

Remember: you need two gable ends, two roof pieces and

two side walls. You can add a window in the gable end without the door.

Lebkuchen Witch’s House Figure 2

When all the house pieces are cut out, roll and cut out

your garden.

Place all the pieces carefully on one or more cookie

sheets lined with nonstick foil and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. If in doubt, it’s better to over bake them than to under bake them. Here’s one rule of thumb: When

your kitchen starts to smell like the Old World Christmas, your Lebkuchen is almost done.

186 There are Witches in the Air

Let the pieces cool
completely
before you make the icing and assemble the house. You can even put the pieces in a tin and pick up again the next day.

Step 4: The Icing

The icing is your snow as well as the glue that will hold

your house together. This recipe makes more than enough,

so don’t be stingy with it. Also, don’t worry if the finished house looks a little gloppy; that’s how your friends will

know you made it yourself.

Ingredients:

2 egg whites

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

2 cups powdered sugar

Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until the mixture foams. Add the sugar a little at a time, beating on low speed. Continue beating a few more minutes until the icing hangs from the beaters but does not drip off.

Step 5: Assembly and Decoration

First, spread the yard with a thick layer of icing. Press one gable wall and adjacent side wall into the icing, cementing the corner with more icing. Check that they are standing

straight, then add remaining two walls and the open door.

Let the icing dry about 20 minutes before gluing the roof

on. Cover the bowl of icing with plastic wrap to prevent

any crust from forming. While you are waiting for the walls to dry, glue your choice of fruit or seaweed inside the windows.

There are Witches in the Air 187

Lebkuchen Witch’s House Figure 3

After you have cemented the roof pieces in place, you

can assemble the chimney. Cut the chocolate pieces at a

slant to match the slope of the roof. You don’t have to be too precise; a healthy slather of icing will cover any mistakes.

Use the rest of the icing for icicles and to glue on any

decorations. The possibilities are endless. I am partial to the
188 There are Witches in the Air

aforementioned licorice pets and sticks as well as allsorts and starlight mints.

Step 6: Eating

Though you might need a hammer, there’s no reason why

you can’t eat this house when Christmas is over. In fact, it’s a good excuse for a party. Hold each shard of house over a steaming cup of coffee or tea to soften it. The seaweed window panes can be easily peeled off, since Lebkuchen and

seaweed together is not a taste that can be acquired by all.

Witches Bearing Gifts

There was a time when it was considered godly to walk

around in a flea-infested hair shirt, while cleanliness was next to witchiness. To this day, the Italian witch Befana pays the price for her overzealous housekeeping each Epiphany

Eve when she flies over the rooftops on her broomstick,

searching for the Baby Jesus. Like the other Midwinter

Witches who have been re-named for saints, Befana’s name

is a slurring of her feast day,
Epiphania
, which comes from the Greek for “manifestation.” Though Befana is now a

thoroughly Christian witch, she remains a manifestation

not just of that shining star over Bethlehem, but of the old winter goddess who used to be abroad at Yuletide.

Befana had the chance to meet the Holy Family in per-

son way back in the first century when the Three Kings

stopped to ask for directions, but she was too busy sweep-

ing the dust from her dooryard to pay the glittering com-

pany any mind. Of course, as soon as they rounded the

There are Witches in the Air 189

bend, she had a change of heart and decided she really

would like to bring a gift to this bright young baby. By the time she had changed her clothes and baked a batch of

pefanino
or Epiphany biscuits, the caravan had passed out of sight. So began her two-thousand year quest to locate

and present her gifts to the Baby Jesus.

In Italy and the Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland,

it is Befana who delivers the presents on the night of January 5. In Sicily, she goes by
La Vecchia di Natali
, the Old Christmas Woman, and comes on Christmas Eve—if, that

is, she has not been preceded down the chimney by a sooty

Lucia on the night of December 12. Usually, Befana simply

pours the toys down the chimney, into the polished boots

and striped stockings the children put out before they go

to bed. How does Befana know what they want? Magic: the

children write their lists on slips of paper in front of the fireplace and let them waft up the chimney and into the sky where Befana deftly catches them.

Sometimes, the old hag comes inside to get a good look

at the children themselves. One of these nights, she hopes, she’ll finally meet up with the Christ Child. In the meantime, she’s not above taking the naughty ones and eating

them, though this aspect of her character has been played

down in recent years. In the nineteenth century, the chil-

dren of the house used to dress a rag doll as a witch and set it in the window on Befana’s Eve. Today, you can still buy carved or stuffed Befanas at the Christmas markets in Italy.

190 There are Witches in the Air

Recipe: Befana Stars

The pefanino of earlier days was either round or shaped like Befana herself on her broomstick. If you are lucky enough

to own a witch-shaped cookie cutter, go for it. Otherwise, the more contemporary star shape will do. Yes, I do realize that you’re busy cleaning house after a frantic Christmas season, but take a hint from Befana, put down the broom

and bake some cookies.

For the dough:

1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

¾ cups sugar

1 whole egg plus one egg yolk (reserve white for

topping)

Zest of one Clementine or small orange

Zest of one small lemon (use half for the dough, reserve

other half for topping.)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon anise extract

2 cups flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar together, add egg yolk and stir well. Mix in zests and extracts. Add the baking powder to

the flour and mix with the rest of the ingredients a little at a time. When the dough is smooth, form it into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.

For the topping:

1 egg white

¼ cup sugar

There are Witches in the Air 191

Remaining lemon zest

½ cup ground almonds (or you can use sliced almonds

and chop them very fine)

Powdered sugar

In a deep, medium-sized bowl, beat the egg white and sugar until stiff. Fold in lemon zest and almonds. Set aside

Roll out the dough to 1⁄8 inch thickness on a floured

surface and cut into star shapes. Lay stars on a greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet and drop a dollop of topping

in the center of each star. Bake at 350 F for 13 minutes or until star points and topping are golden brown.

Dust cookies with powdered sugar while they are still

warm.

Befana Stars

Dark Spirits of Hearth and Home

The Lithuanian girl who wished to look on the face of her

future husband could do so by walking three times round

the chimneystack, naked, on Christmas Eve. This would

be the central, freestanding structure which rose right up through the attic, so the girl could enact the ritual in private. The attic was really the only place to do it, for there could be no lights burning in the room if the spell were to work and her lover’s image come swimming up out of the

darkness. It is not by chance that the magic was worked in the vicinity of the chimney, for the space inside those creosote-caked bricks or stones housed powerful spirits, as did the hearth below.

First engineered by the Normans in the eleventh cen-

tury, the chimney was much more than a means of con-

ducting smoke out of the hall. If you wish to look with your own eyes on the passage to the land of the dead, you have

only to find an ancient Welsh farmhouse, step inside and

stick your head inside the kitchen fireplace. Twist your head
193

194 Dark Spirits of Hearth and Home

and look up into the black flue. Can you see a light at the end of the tunnel? For many a Welshman who had died or

been laid out at home, this was the way to the afterlife. It was bad practice to carry a corpse out the same door used

by the living, and the windows were too small to accommo-