Alphito
Sign in to saveAlphito () is a supernatural being first recorded in the Moralia of Plutarch, where "apotropaic nursery tales" about her are told by nursemaids to frighten little children into behaving. Her name is related to alphita, "white flour" (compare Latin albus), and alphitomanteia, a form of divination (-manteia) from flour or barley meal. She was presumably old, with white hair the color of flour.
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Alphito () is a supernatural being first recorded in the Moralia of Plutarch, where "apotropaic nursery tales" about her are told by nursemaids to frighten little children into behaving. Her name is related to alphita, "white flour" (compare Latin albus), and alphitomanteia, a form of divination (-manteia) from flour or barley meal. She was presumably old, with white hair the color of flour.
Although Alphito has been called a mere boogeyman, the 19th-century folklorist Wilhelm Mannhardt, forerunner of J.G. Frazer, classified her as originally a "corn mother" because of her name, and others have considered her a vegetation spirit. According to Robert Graves, Frazer thought Alphito was actually Demeter or Persephone.