 In Normandy, farmers employed children under twelve to run through the fields and orchards armed with torches, setting fire to bundles of straw, and thus it was believed driving out such vermin as were likely to damage the crops.In Italy, among other Advent celebrations is the entry into Rome in the last days of Advent of the Calabrian "pifferari", or bagpipe players, who play before the shrines of Mary, the mother of Jesus