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Atlas NoctisA nocturnal atlas of folklore
A — documented

Vecia Redosega

the Veneto · The Alpine arc
Valbelluna, Cadore, Agordino; German-speaking Alpine area

Vecia Redosega — small old woman with a wrinkled face and a hooked nose, with two opposite aspects — beautiful and ugly — and one anomalous foot, of a goose or a swan.

During the twelve nights, an old woman with a hooked nose crosses a snowy Alpine lane with distaff and flax; a webbed goose foot shows.
Variants and dialect names
Vecia Redosega, Vecia Marantega, Donàcia, Donàze; Perchta, Berchta, Percht, Pehtra Baba
What is told
Small old woman with a wrinkled face and a hooked nose, with two opposite aspects — beautiful and ugly — and one anomalous foot, of a goose or a swan. She goes about during the twelve nights between Christmas and Epiphany.
What it was forthe author’s reading
Control of women's work: she rips open the belly of anyone who has spun during the forbidden nights or has not finished her spinning, replacing the entrails with straw and potsherds. In the benevolent version she brings gifts.
Where it is attested
Solid documentation both for the German-speaking area and for the Venetian variants, with distinct local names valley by valley.
Caution
The derivations of Redodesa from Herodias and of Marantega from mater antiqua are local learned conjectures; the second is more defensible than the first.

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

In the same area

ABadaliscLombardy — Andrista di Cevo, upper Val Camonica (province of Brescia)AAnguanethe Veneto, Trentino-South Tyrol, Friuli-Venezia Giulia — Venetian and Trentino Prealps, from Val Camonica to the Slovenian borderAOm salvàrechTrentino-South Tyrol, Lombardy, Piedmont, the Aosta Valley — The whole Alpine arc, greatest density in Trentino and ValtellinaBRegno dei FanesTrentino-South Tyrol — Alpe di Fanes, Marebbe (province of Bolzano), and the Ladin DolomitesCGigiàtLombardy — Val Masino (province of Sondrio), with extensions into Valchiavenna and BregagliaABenandantiFriuli-Venezia Giulia — Central and eastern Friuli: Cividale del Friuli, Iassico and Brazzano near Cormòns, Udine, Aquileia, Monfalcone, Latisana

Related by theme

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

BFrau Holle e Frau PerchtaGermany — Hesse and Thuringia for Holle, the East Upper German area — Bavaria, Austria, Tyrol — for Perchta

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