High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Benandanti ("Good Walkers") were an agrarian visionary tradition in the Friuli district of Northern Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Benandanti claimed to travel out of their bodies while asleep to struggle against malevolent witches (streghe) in order to ensure good crops for the season to come. Between 1575 and 1675, in the midst of the Early Modern witch trials, the Benandanti were tried as heretics or witches under the Roman Inquisition, and their beliefs assimilated to Satanism.