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In this blog post, we will discuss a strange celebration of a Catholic saint in a country where most of the people are Lutherans.
It happens each year and today is the day of the patron saints of the visually impaired among others, Saint Lucia.
Lucia is derived from the Latin word “Lux” Which means light
Saint Lucia Is Celebrated On December 13th In Scandinavia
Since this tradition started in Sweden we will investigate how Saint Lucia’s day is celebrated in that country.
In Sweden, it is a tradition to bake a special kind of bread called “lussekatt” or “lussebulle” on this festive day of December 13th which is made out of wheat dough, for the most part, two raisins and flavored with saffron.
The word “lusse” is derived from the name of the saint, Lucia which is derived from the Latin word for light, “lux”.
Children (and grown-ups too) dress up in a white, long (ankle-length) robe.
One of the females (but it can actually be a male which would be more accurate from a historical point, please read more about this below) has been elected to wear a crown, which consists of five candles (electrical or candlelight) and she will play the part of Saint Lucia.
She also wears a red robe around her waist and put her hands in a praying position with the palms put together in front of her.
The other women that also “lussar” (Lucia, walking in a straight line following the “Saint Lucia”) just wears a small band of tinsel around their forehead and a white robe tied around their wastes.
If there are some men they wear the same ankle-length robe as the women do and they are called “stjärngossar” and wears a hat formed like a cone and holds a small stick with a star at one end in one hand.
This, however, comes from another saint, Stefanos (Steven, Stephan) and they follow them. They sing a special song about him and the horse that he liked to ride according to the song called “Apelgrå”.
Some people, however, argue that it actually is not Stefanos (which were stoned to death by unbelievers according to Acts) but the three wise men (Melchior, Balthasar, and Caspar) that followed the star of Bethlehem to find the baby, Jesus.
It has also been speculated whether or not the “stjärngosse” is based on pre-Christian motifs, however, it is highly speculative.
There might be some “Santas” and/or gingerbread men/women (in Swedish: pepparkaksgubbe / pepparkaksgumma) too since the day is celebrated close to Christmas.
When the Lucia celebration shifted from mainly to be celebrated in the countryside to the cities, thanks to the urbanization of Sweden, the Lucia was expanded with the “stjärngosse”, Santas and the gingerbread-persons.
Traditional hymns and songs are many but the “theme song” so to speak is derived from an Italian (actually from Naples) song called “Santa Lucia”.
It is, however, worth to notice that the song in the original text is about the port in Syracuse, Sicily called Santa Lucia and not the saint.
There are different versions of the song but we found the version that is the traditional one on YouTube if you want to listen to it.
How On Earth Can A Lutheran Country Celebrate A Catholic Saint?
If you have asked the question, we will deliver the answer and the short version is: They don’t!
It actually started in the town of Uppsala, at the University where (male) students “lussade” for the faculty members in the 18th Century.
Then the celebration has spread around Sweden and is celebrated around the country from north to south and from east to west like we described above.
Even though it started with male students, nowadays the “traditional” Lucia is a blue-eyed woman with blond hair, however, this is of course highly inaccurate in a historical sense.
The real Saint Lucia came from Italy and were hardly blond and blue-eyed, but rather had black hair and brown eyes.
She is celebrated on December 13th by both Catholics and Christian Orthodox (and of course in the Churches in Sweden too).
Lucia As A Swedish Export
The Swedish way of celebrating Saint Lucia has been exported to USA (especially in Minnesota where a lot of Swedes settled in the New World in the 1800s), Denmark, Norway, and Finland. An English version of the Neapolitan song has actually been recorded by Elvis Presley in 1965.
The Legend Of Saint Lucia
This is a version that we have found and we have also included some explanatory information to link it to the Swedish version of the celebration described above:
It is said that the Saint Lucia already at a young age were delivering a vow of chastity but did not tell anybody. When her father died, her mother promised a man that he would marry the beautiful young woman.
Lucia prayed to God to intervene and stop the marriage between her and the man.
Then it is said that God gave Lucia’s mother hemophilia.
Then the woman convinced her mother to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Agatha.
When the two women arrived at the tomb, Saint Agatha asked Lucia why she would pray for something that she could manage to achieve herself.
Lucia then told her mother about her vow of chastity and the mother promised that she didn’t have to marry the man she was already engaged to.
However, the man was not pleased and told the authorities that Lucia was a Christian.
This was under Emperor Diocletian who actively persecuted Christians for their faith.
Lucia was sentenced to work as a prostitute at a brothel but when she was to be taken to that place she prayed to God and the oxen that drove the cart froze.
They tried to make them move by pouring boiling oil on Lucia but nothing changed.
Then someone in sheer desperation (according to some versions of the legend the emperor himself) thrust a sword in her throat but she didn’t die then either (this should be the reason why the red robe is tied around the waste of the modern Lucia).
It wasn’t until someone gave her the last rites she died.
There is also a legend that she before she died tore out her eyes and sent them to the man she was previously engaged to.
Sometimes she has often been portrayed with a plate with two eyes on them in the Christian art thanks to this legend.
Yet another legend about her tells that she used to candle lights in a crown that she put on her head when she was visiting prisoners in the prisons and fed them.
Saint Lucia is the patron saint of prostitutes that regret what they are doing, visually impaired, weavers, sick children and many other groups.
Summary
We can summarize this very long post by saying that the Lucia-tradition is very wide-spread however celebrated in different ways around the World and the origins of the Swedish tradition might come from many different sources where the Catholic legend is just one part of it.
Next blog post
Our next blog post will be about our posts in December 2014 and in the beginning of January 2015 and also that we have updated our app a bit.
It will be delivered on Wednesday the 17th of December 2014.
Happy Saint Lucia Day!
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