Italian legend about male fairies called "Arfai"

In every country there are some legends about fairies, gnomes or other little creatures. Sometimes legends from different countries have some differences, sometimes they are very similar, but in every case they are always really interesting for me. ^_^

I decided to start a series of contents about the italian folklore about fairies, so I cleaned all the books about it on our bookshelves to share a bit of our stories with you!

The story of today is about the Afai (or arfari), the male fairies. This male fairis are not reallu common in other countries, maybe the french Fayoux are the most similar to them.

The stories about Arfai come from the area of Torino (Nothern Italy) live under the water and they protect the river Dora Ripari, but they have a strange behaviour along the river! They are excellent laundry workers and if they watch a nice and kind girl who're washing her clothes (In the old time, when the girls and the women washed the clothes on the river, nit using the washing machine ^_^), they take away her clothes and the day after they bring the cloths back well cleaned  and with a wonderful smell! 

Sometimes, when they see that a girl is a lazy girl, the Arfai take away the cloths and they have fun to hide the clothes in different sort of places! 

Here in Tuscany region we don't know any Arfai, but sometimes clothes disappeared before to dry also here, especially one of a socks pair ;)

See ya soon 

Silvia