Catania, Sicily is the site of a centuries-old religious festival that is now one of the largest in the world. Being there was a real treat and gave one a sense of how primal this 3-day annual ritual is, the deep roots of which are obscured. It is ostensibly dedicated to St. Agatha, a 3rd C. Christian martyr, but the Christian dressing is just a thin veneer laid over an ancient pagan celebration of the Goddess. Huge gilded 'candelora' are hefted through the streets by teams of burly men, followed by a huge, elaborately decorated silver baldachin, containing the saint's reliquaries, and then a procession of enormous candles that lasts all night. Thousands of people crowd the streets, many devotees dressed in simple white robes, to revel and plead for intersession. St. Agatha and her rivers of candles pouring through the streets protects the people from nearby Mt. Etna, whose rivulets of hot lava we could see burning in the night far behind the city.
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