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Atlas NoctisA nocturnal atlas of folklore
B — partly documented

Scazzamurieddhu

Apulia · The Mezzogiorno
The whole of Puglia, with its epicentre in the Ionian-Salentine area

Scazzamurieddhu — an ugly, hairy little man «the size of a three-year-old child», tobacco-coloured clothes, often barefoot, with a pointed cap.

The Scazzamurieddhu, a hairy little man with a pointed cap, seated on the belly of a sleeper in a Salentine masseria.
Variants and dialect names
Scazzamurieddhu, Laùru, Laurieddhu, Munaceddhu, Uriceddhu, Ssciauddhi, Carcaluru, Scarcagnulu, Tummà, Schezzamurid
What is told
An ugly, hairy little man «the size of a three-year-old child», tobacco-coloured clothes, often barefoot, with a pointed cap. Small but extremely strong and extremely heavy. He never appears by day. He sits on the sleeper's belly; he knots manes; by stealing his cap one becomes rich, but he deceives his captor with an ambiguous question.
What it was forthe author’s reading
Sleep paralysis; domestic accidents and small disappearances; an explanation of sudden wealth in a society with blocked economic mobility. The version that shows him as a helper of young girls serves to make light of female servile labour.
Where it is attested
Classical antecedents of the incubus type in Petronius, Pliny, Augustine. Dialectological survey of names and municipalities by the Fondazione Terra d'Otranto.
Caution
I have not found a consultable nineteenth-century Salentine collection that systematises the figure: the tradition is certain, its early written recording is fragmentary. The papier-mâché statuettes and the garden gnomes are commercialisation from the 2000s, not ritual continuity.

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 IrpiniaBMunacielloCampania — Naples and the Vesuvian areaBMonachicchioBasilicata, Calabria — Inland Basilicata and northern Calabria; strong attestation from Aliano (province of Matera)ATarantateApulia, 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.

BAmmuntadoreSardinia — The whole of SardiniaAMazapégulEmilia-Romagna — Romagna: Forlì-Cesena, Ravenna, Rimini, with an Apennine coreABuffardelloTuscany, Liguria — Val di Serchio, Garfagnana, Versilia, LunigianaAPantaficaAbruzzo, the Marche — Inland Abruzzo and the Marche; the belief covers the entire peninsula under different names

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