The Monachicchio

The story

In Lucania, which today we call Basilicata, on winter evenings, when the fire died down and the candles trembled, families knew they were not alone in the house.

There were the monachicchi.

To call them "spirits" would be wrong. Spirits are frightening. The monachicchi, which the old people also called munaceddi, played pranks, and the writer Carlo Levi, when he was sent to those lands, many years ago, described them with a precise word: innocent.

He had heard the peasants talk about them. And he described them in the book that made him famous, "Cristo si è fermato a Eboli", that is, "Christ Stopped at Eboli". They are small, very quick, with a red cap on their heads. They run around the house at such a speed that nobody can catch them. They have a kind of hopping, playful whimsy, Levi says, like children who have never stopped playing.

What do they do?

Let us imagine an ordinary night, in a house in a mountain village. A girl is asleep in the big bed, under three woollen blankets. The moon is high. Outside, the wind passes through the alleys. Inside, all is calm.

Then, slowly, someone tickles the soles of her feet.

She moves, pulls her leg away, turns to the other side. The tickling starts again. So she opens her eyes. There is nobody. But at the foot of the bed, for a moment, she sees a red cap duck down behind the edge of the mattress. And she hears a little giggle, thin and quick, like that of a child who has hidden.

She sits up. She looks for the candle. In the kitchen, something falls: a glass of wine, tipped over on the table. Then a spoon vanishes from the drawer. Then a pinch on the arm, then a tug on her hair. Then, near her ear, a thin whistle, like a mosquito that does not bite.

That is how the monachicchi are. They do not wish you harm. They want to wake you, scare you a little, make you run around the house. For them it is a game.

And what about those who want to be rid of them?

Here we must remember what the old people tell, in a low voice. To catch a monachicchio, there is only one way: you must be very, very quick. One single move, fast as lightning, to seize his red cap. Levi writes this in his book, but he does not say what happens next. He leaves the reader curious. Perhaps because there is no single answer, and every village has its own.

Because the monachicchi are a little different from village to village.

At Colobraro, for example, a village perched six hundred metres above the Sinni valley, things change. Colobraro has just over a thousand inhabitants, and its neighbours call it "that village". It is said that pronouncing its name brings bad luck. There the monachicchio has a darker face. They describe him as half sprite and half demon. They say he nests in abandoned houses and cellars, where nobody goes any more. And there is a legend that explains his origin: he would be a child born with two little horns and a tail.

To keep him away, they say, you need precise rites, which the old people knew and nobody ever wrote down.

Today Colobraro has turned its fame into a festival. In summer, the village alleys fill with spectators following a travelling show, "Sogno di una notte a Quel Paese", "A Midsummer Night at That Village". There are masciare, brigands, werewolves. And monachicchi, of course.

So if one day you find yourself in an old house in Lucania, and hear a spoon fall for no reason, or feel a tickle on your feet when you thought you were alone, do not get upset.

It is probably just a little guest, with a red cap, who has decided to have some fun.