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Atlas NoctisA nocturnal atlas of folklore
B — partly documented

Munaciello

Campania · The Mezzogiorno
Naples and the Vesuvian area

Munaciello — a child or an adult of very short stature, often deformed, in a monk's habit with silver buckles on his shoes.

The Munaciello, of slight stature and in a habit with silver buckles, climbs up the well and enters a house in the Neapolitan quarters.
Variants and dialect names
Munaciello, monaciello; in the same family the Salentine Munaceddhu, the Lucanian Munachicchio, the Sicilian Monacello
What is told
A child or an adult of very short stature, often deformed, in a monk's habit with silver buckles on his shoes. Benevolent (he leaves money, suggests numbers), mischievous (he hides objects, blows into sleepers' ears), troublesome. Revealing his presence brings misfortune. Red hood, good fortune; black, disaster.
What it was forthe author’s reading
A socially acceptable cover for disappearances of money in overcrowded tenement houses, night-time noises in Neapolitan buildings, sudden gains or losses, domestic thefts and small undeclarable earnings.
Where it is attested
The most frequently cited provision is traced back to a viceregal prammatica of the count of Miranda of 24 December 1587, under the heading De locato et conducto, which is said to have allowed the tenant to leave without paying a house believed to be infested by Monacelli. Later bibliography: A. M. Ortese, Il Monaciello di Napoli, 2001.
Caution
Note: that passage comes from an eighteenth-century commentary — Grimaldi, Istoria delle leggi e magistrati del Regno di Napoli, vol. IX, 1771, p. 4 — and I have not been able to check it against the original normative text. Zingaropoli, Case infestate dagli spiriti, 1917, which is the classic on the subject, does not cite it. It is to be presented as a second-hand erudite report, not as archival evidence. The story of Stefano Mariconda and Caterinella Frezza, set in 1445, is by Matilde Serao, Leggende napoletane, 1881, and has no archival corroboration: Serao is a witness to the folklore of 1881, not to that of the fifteenth century. The pozzari hypothesis is a modern rationalisation.

The grade says how well the entry is documented, not how interesting it is. How the grades are assigned.

In the same area

BJanaraCampania — Benevento and the valleys of the Sabato and the Calore; Sannio and IrpiniaBMonachicchioBasilicata, Calabria — Inland Basilicata and northern Calabria; strong attestation from Aliano (province of Matera)BScazzamurieddhuApulia — The whole of Puglia, with its epicentre in the Ionian-Salentine areaATarantateApulia, Basilicata — Salento, provinces of Lecce, Brindisi and Taranto; the ritual centre is the chapel of San Paolo at GalatinaAI vattienti di Nocera TerineseCalabria — Nocera Terinese (province of Catanzaro), Tyrrhenian Calabria; related flagellation rites are attested elsewhere in the region, for example at Verbicaro (province of Cosenza)

Related by theme

Entries that share the motif, the phenomenon behind it or the history of their collection — not the geography.

AZashiki-warashiJapan — Iwate Prefecture, Tōno area, Tōhoku; minor attestations in Aomori, Miyagi and AkitaBDokkaebiSouth Korea — Korean peninsula; documentary anchorage at Gyeongju, where the figure touches writing for the first timeBSaci-PererêBrazil — Vale do Paraíba and the Brazilian south-east, with Monteiro Lobato's inquiry centred on TaubatéBMammadragaSicily — Sicily, the Palermo area and the centre-west

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