ness, nervous vigilance, and fear swept through the peasantry.
This kind of mentality concerning witchcraft was altogether different than the view of the Friuli peasantry before the Inquisition emerged. Benandanti were thought to be good walkers and good for society. The Friuli peasantry viewed the benandanti as a kind of fertility cult. Witches to the peasantry were antisocial and destructive in contrast to the demonic view of them by the educated elite. Witches were thought responsible for stealing wine, attacking crops, attacking cattle, urinating in wine, and various other antisocial activities “They congregate in certain places to perform marriages, to dance and eat and drink; and on their way home the evil-doers go into the cellars to drink, and then urinate in the casks” (Ginzburg 3).
The benandanti would fight witches in their dreams. They would lie in bed and fall asleep. While in a dream they would be contacted and ordered to set out against witches an
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