A closer look
Historian Carlo Ginzburg dug through Inquisition archives and uncovered the Benandanti, a 16th-century Italian agrarian cult that sounds entirely like a fever dream. These self-proclaimed 'good walkers' believed that on certain nights, their souls left their sleeping bodies to do astral battle with evil witches over the region's crop fertility. Their weapon of choice for this ethereal turf war was fennel stalks, which hopelessly confused the local Catholic inquisitors who couldn't figure out if they were dealing with saints or satanists.
