Carlo Ginzburg’s The Night Battles studies the folk customs of these beings, who he described as being part of a “fertility cult.” For 10 points each:
[10h] Name these Friulian “good walkers” who claimed to travel out of their bodies during sleep, and fight for God using fennel against sorcerers armed with sorghum on Thursdays between the ember days.
ANSWER: benandanti [or benandante; or benandants]
[10m] Ginzburg compares the benandanti to Theiss, a Livonian man who claimed to become one of these creatures to defend his village’s crops. One of these creatures tears off his wife’s nose in Marie de France’s lai (“lay”) Bisclavret.
ANSWER: werewolves [or werewolf; or lycanthropes]
[10e] Benandanti would often perform this action on their spirit journeys to meet the bad sorcerers. In folklore, witches often use brooms to perform this action.
ANSWER: flight [or flying]
<Benjamin McAvoy-Bickford, Mythology>