The legend of the Christmas witch is a fascinating tale that originates from Italy. In Italian folklore, the Christmas witch, also known as La Befana, is said to visit children on the night of January 5th, leaving them gifts and treats if they have been good, and coal or dark candy if they have been naughty. The legend of La Befana goes back hundreds of years and is closely tied to the biblical story of the Three Wise Men. As the tale goes, the Three Wise Men were on their way to visit baby Jesus when they stopped at the cottage of an old woman to ask for directions. They invited her to join them on their journey, but she declined. Later, the old woman changed her mind and tried to catch up with them, bringing along gifts for the baby Jesus.

Grace Sherwood: The "Witch of Pungo"

On July 10, 1706, a forty-six-year-old Princess Anne County woman named Grace Sherwood faced an unusual legal procedure. Her hands were tied and she was about to be thrown from a boat into a river as a test to see if she was a witch. For several years neighbors talked of how the midwife, healer, and widowed mother of three had ruined crops, killed livestock, and conjured up storms. Then in January of 1706 Luke Hill formally accused Sherwood of witchcraft. The case passed from the county court to the attorney general of Virginia without any judgment.

Grace Sherwood Court Trial

Finally, authorities in Princess Anne County ordered that the accused be "ducked" in consecrated water to determine her guilt or innocence. By this ordeal, if she sank she would be declared innocent, but if she floated her identity as a witch would be proven. A spot in the Lynnhaven River, off what is today known as Witchduck Point, was chosen, and Grace Sherwood was bound and thrown from a boat. She managed to untie herself and rise to the surface, proving to those present that she was a witch. As punishment for her crime, Grace Sherwood spent seven years in jail. After her release the so-called "witch of Pungo" returned to her home and lived peacefully until her death around the age of eighty.

On July 10, 2006, Gov. Tim Kaine restored Grace Sherwood's good name, three hundred years to the day since the "ducking" ordeal that condemned her for witchcraft. Learn more

Letter, 1832 October 1, written by Archibald Taylor, Belle Farm, Glucester County, Va., to Jonathan Peter Cushing, Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney, Va., concerning the manuscript of the Grace Sherwood trial. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

Copy made by J. J. Burroughs from the original in the courthouse of Princess Anne County, Va., 15 September 1832.
Records, 1706 January 3-July 10, of the Court of Princess Anne County, Va., concerning the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft based on charges made by Luke Hill. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

Copy made by J. J. Burroughs from the original in the courthouse of Princess Anne County, Va., 15 September 1832.
Records, 1706 January 3-July 10, of the Court of Princess Anne County, Va., concerning the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft based on charges made by Luke Hill. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

Copy made by J. J. Burroughs from the original in the courthouse of Princess Anne County, Va., 15 September 1832.
Records, 1706 January 3-July 10, of the Court of Princess Anne County, Va., concerning the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft based on charges made by Luke Hill. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

Copy made by J. J. Burroughs from the original in the courthouse of Princess Anne County, Va., 15 September 1832.
Records, 1706 January 3-July 10, of the Court of Princess Anne County, Va., concerning the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft based on charges made by Luke Hill. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

Copy made by J. J. Burroughs from the original in the courthouse of Princess Anne County, Va., 15 September 1832.
Records, 1706 January 3-July 10, of the Court of Princess Anne County, Va., concerning the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft based on charges made by Luke Hill. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

Copy made by J. J. Burroughs from the original in the courthouse of Princess Anne County, Va., 15 September 1832.
Records, 1706 January 3-July 10, of the Court of Princess Anne County, Va., concerning the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft based on charges made by Luke Hill. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

Copy made by J. J. Burroughs from the original in the courthouse of Princess Anne County, Va., 15 September 1832.
Records, 1706 January 3-July 10, of the Court of Princess Anne County, Va., concerning the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft based on charges made by Luke Hill. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

Copy made by J. J. Burroughs from the original in the courthouse of Princess Anne County, Va., 15 September 1832.
Records, 1706 January 3-July 10, of the Court of Princess Anne County, Va., concerning the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft based on charges made by Luke Hill. Princess Anne County Court records of the trial of Grace Sherwood. (VHS call number: Mss4 P9354 a 1)

There Be Great Witches Among Them: Witchcraft and the Devil in Colonial Virginia

S alem witch trials are among the most well-known instances of witchcraft in colonial America, but belief in witches was not limited to New England. The colonists who settled in the lower colonies, like Virginia, came from England at a time when witch trials were a fact of life and had been for centuries. Beliefs such as these were bolstered by King James I’s 1597 text Daemonologie, which wrote that witchcraft and possession by the devil was, “most common in such wild partes of the worlde,” because there, “the Devill findes greatest ignorance and barbaritie.” 1 As Edward Bond wrote in his article “Source of Knowledge, Source of Power,” this led to English colonists who were “predisposed…to see evidence of malevolent supernatural forces in North America,” which they did, nearly immediately. 2

Upon arrival, colonists recorded the signs of witchcraft and the devil they saw in the new world. When describing the native people of Virginia, John Smith wrote, “their chiefe God they worship is the Devill,” 3 and Powhatan, the chief, was “more devill than man.” 4 Reverend Alexander Whitaker, in a letter to a fellow priest in England, wrote that the behavior of the native people, “make me think that there be great witches among them, and that they are very familiar with the devil.” 5

In his article “The Devil in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century”, Richard Beale Davis wrote that the few instances of witchcraft in colonial Virginia “had more to do with folklore than theology,” and Virginia avoided anything nearing the scale of the witch trials in Salem due to the shift from the puritanism of the Virginia Company to Anglican beliefs. Nonetheless, Davis argues, “that there should be investigations of alleged witchcraft was inevitable in any seventeenth-century European society.” 6 In her thesis The Cup of Ruin and Desolation, Maureen Rush Burgess explains that while the “East Anglican Puritans” believed that witchcraft was heresy, the colonists who settled in Virginia hailed from all regions of England, and generally shared the more traditional English sentiment that witchcraft was a practice. 7

The Act of 1604 identified witchcraft as a felony in England and its colonies. Specifically, the law forbade the “practice of invoking or conjuring spirits…. [or] to consult, covenant with, entertain employ, feed, or reward any evil and wicked spirit to or for any intent or purpose.” Convicted witches were sentenced to die by hanging. 8

James I’s Act of 1604 was repealed in 1736. Published in Williamsburg that same year, too early to reflect the replacement of James I’s statue with the Act of 1736, The Office and Authority of the Justice of the Peace wrote the following regarding witchcraft and its corresponding punishments:

The existence of Witches, or Persons of either Sex, who have real correspondence and familiar conversation with Evil Spirits, has been a Subject of Controversy among learned Men; and Later Ages have produced very few Instances of Convictions of Witchcraft; But nevertheless, ‘tis a Capital Offence, and, by the Common Law, such Offenders were to be burnt. 9

The Act of 1736 no longer classified witchcraft as a felony, but still imposed a punishment of a year in prison for “persons pretending to use witchcraft.” 10

Early Virginia court documents that mention witchcraft were often libel cases; the accused witch could, and did often, sue their accuser for slander in civil court, even if no formal charge had been made. In a stated attempt to dissuade slander, the Norfolk court in 1655 imposed a fine of 1000 pounds of tobacco for “any such scandal” like the “dangerous and scandalous speeches have been raised by some persons concerning severall women in this Countie, termeing them to be Witches” if there was no proof to back up the accuser’s claims. 11 If formal charges of witchcraft were alleged, the case would first be heard in county courts, and, if the situation was considered serious enough, move to the General Courts in Jamestown. 12

Unfortunately, many of Virginia’s early court records were destroyed in Civil War fires, resulting in spotty documentation of witchcraft cases heard in the Commonwealth, often missing verdicts or dropping off halfway through the case, and the fates of the accused are lost to history.

The earliest documented case of witchcraft in the Virginia colonies took place in 1626, when Joan Wright was tried at the General Court at Jamestown. The initial testimony concerned the sickness and death of an infant. The child’s father, Lt. Allington, had initially sought to hire Wright as a midwife for his wife’s birth, but after discovering she was left handed, a bad omen, he instead chose another midwife. After this slight to Mrs. Wright, disaster struck Allington’s family. Both mother and baby fell ill, and the baby died. Multiple other people testified against Wright, alleging that she could predict death, and had caused the sickness and death of neighbor’s farm animals. While court records show that the following week more testimony was heard, the records end without a verdict for Mrs. Wright. 13

Two women were hung for witchcraft on ships off the coast of Virginia, first in 1654, and again in 1659. The matter concerning Katherine Grady’s 1654 execution was later heard in a Jamestown court, while Elizabeth Richardson’s 1659 execution went to a Maryland court. Both women were hung in efforts to calm storms that the crew and passengers believed were caused by witches. Both captains were tried, though the records for Captain Bennett, who ordered Grady’s death were lost, Captain Prescott was not convicted of any wrongdoing in Richardson’s death. 14

Witchcraft In Colonial Virginia

While the Salem witch trials get the most notoriety, Virginia’s witchcraft history dates back many years before that. Colonial Virginians shared a common belief in the supernatural with their northern neighbors. While the witchcraft mania that swept through Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 was significant, fascination with it has tended to overshadow the historical records of other persecutions throughout early America. The 1626 case of Joan Wright, the first woman to be accused of witchcraft in British North America, began Virginia’s own witch craze. Utilizing surviving records, author, local historian and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Carson Hudson narrates these fascinating stories.

Later, the old woman changed her mind and tried to catch up with them, bringing along gifts for the baby Jesus. However, she was unable to find them and has been searching ever since. According to the legend, on the night of January 5th, La Befana flies on her broomstick from house to house, sliding down chimneys to deliver presents to children.

She is depicted as an old woman dressed in tattered clothing, carrying a broomstick, and covered in soot from her travels down chimneys. Children hang their stockings by the fireplace and leave a plate of food and a glass of wine for La Befana. If a child has been good, La Befana will fill their stocking with toys, chocolates, and other treats. If a child has been naughty, she will leave them a lump of coal or dark candy as a reminder to behave better next year. The tradition of La Befana is still celebrated today in Italy, particularly in the regions of Tuscany and Umbria, where it is a popular custom. Families come together to exchange gifts and enjoy special meals on the night of January 5th. Children eagerly await the arrival of La Befana, and in some towns, there are parades and festivals in her honor. The legend of the Christmas witch is a unique and enchanting part of Italian folklore. It adds an element of magic and excitement to the Christmas season, bringing joy to children and reminding them to always strive to be good. La Befana serves as a reminder that kindness and generosity should be celebrated and rewarded, while also imparting the lesson that one should strive to make amends for missed opportunities..

Reviews for "The Symbolism Behind the Christmas Witch"

1. Jennifer - 1/5

I was really disappointed with "The Legend of the Christmas Witch". The plot was confusing and poorly-developed, making it hard to understand what was even happening. The acting was also subpar, with stiff performances and lackluster dialogue. Additionally, the special effects were cheesy and unconvincing, making it hard to take the film seriously. Overall, I felt like this movie was a waste of time and would not recommend it to anyone.

2. Mark - 2/5

While "The Legend of the Christmas Witch" had an interesting premise, it failed to deliver an engaging story. The pacing was uneven, and I found myself losing interest multiple times throughout the film. The character development was lacking, and I struggled to connect with any of the main characters. The movie also relied heavily on clichés and predictable plot twists, making it feel unoriginal and uninspired. I was hoping for a unique and entertaining Christmas movie, but unfortunately, this one fell short.

3. Rebecca - 2/5

I had high hopes for "The Legend of the Christmas Witch" as a fan of holiday-themed movies, but it left me disappointed. The narrative was convoluted and lacked coherence, leaving me confused about the story's direction. The dialogue was often cringe-worthy, and the performances felt forced and unnatural. Although the movie had potential, it failed to execute its concept effectively. Overall, "The Legend of the Christmas Witch" was a mediocre film that didn't live up to its promising premise.

4. Michael - 1/5

"The Legend of the Christmas Witch" was a complete letdown for me. The acting was wooden, and the dialogue felt forced and unnatural. The plot was predictable and lacked creativity, making it a boring watch. The special effects were poorly done and took away from the overall viewing experience. The movie failed to capture the magical essence of Christmas that I was hoping for. I regret wasting my time on this film and wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for a festive and enjoyable holiday movie.

5. Sarah - 2/5

I was excited to watch "The Legend of the Christmas Witch" based on the trailers, but unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. The film had some interesting ideas, but they were poorly executed. The pacing was sluggish, and the story lacked depth and originality. The acting was mediocre, and the characters felt one-dimensional. Overall, the movie had potential, but it fell flat and failed to leave a lasting impression. I wouldn't recommend it to others seeking a captivating Christmas movie.

Exploring the Origins of the Christmas Witch