"it's strange" No, because Lucia is as much a remnant of pre-christian culture as anything else. So catholicism and protestantism makes absolutely no difference. "syncretised" No, you most likely got it backwards. Pre-christian traditions survived by masquerading as christian... Try investigating how the use of runescript has recently been found to probably be relatively normal in Nordic nations up until the mid 19th century. And up until at least 18th century, it is likely that it was very commonly known and used. And we're not finding traces of it, because it was used on highly perishable writing media, like bark, wood, waxtablets and the like. But the church still reported that literacy was nonexistant. Despite the priests effectively had to know how common runes likely were. It was just part of the background culture. People kept it from competing with christian latin, and as such, the church didn't care. "cant be a connection" Of course there can be a connection. Santa is based on Yule-traditions, and with the calender getting messed with, of course santa needs to be included with Lucia. Or maybe he's there as a show of "i'm coming...". There's many possibilities really. I've read several possible explanations for the gingerbread peoples and they range all the way from "oh dear..." via "OMG!!!" to "not only plausible but also not horrible". For example, there's a lot of traditions around food over the course of yule and x-mas. And that's most likely the origin, together with how rare it was to get many of the expensive spices, like those used in gingerbread.
There is a very logical link between the most well-known saint and mystic of Sweden , Saint Birgitta, who is the only saint that has founded her religious community in Rome.
In Finnish elementary and middle schools, being selected as the year's Lucia for the Lucia mass was and is still something similar to being prom queen in US. Usually the most popular and pretty blonde girl won the title.
Yes, well we Northern Europens do like our girls pretty and blond. It's the same in Scotland. Although we don't have this particular tradition. 🏴🤝🏽🇫🇮
In Jyväskylä, Finland, we were taught in basic school that Lucia's day is an old remnant of the time when it was celebrated as the midwinter solstice, but when the calendars were reformed, the celebration moved away from its original place. But Lucia's day is not as messed up as Nordic Christmas, which was originally a harvest festival celebrated in autumn, for example the Finnish kekri festival, before it was moved to midwinter.
Well, I mean, how are you gonna commercialize it? Sell Lucia crowns and costumes? We sorta already do that, it's just not a tradition most people are expected to actively participate in. See, what _could_ theoretically have been commercialized is the whole stjärngosse ("star boy") part, since it ties into Staffansritten, which back in the day was pretty much just a more hardcore yuletide version of going trick or treating for Halloween.
I have nothing to back this up, but I'm fairly certain it's remaining this lowkey because of which countries celebrate it. If it was a thing in the US for example, you _know_ their corporations would find some way to monetize the soul out of it, which would then spread to every other country where it's celebrated.
As an Italian, I can add that S. Lucia is not even a very common "holyday" here. I'd say it's a day of celebration only in Sicily, but definitely almost ignored in the mainland, except maybe for single cities (Venice, for example, because it's where's Lucia's body currently is). It's still interesting to know that in Sweden something happens that I would expect from Southern Italy - although it doesn't look like you spend that day eating fried things like they do here. :D
Same in Spain. It's celebrated locally in different parts but not widely as a national holiday. My grandma's name was Lucía and the patron saint of her village was Santa Lucía. There it is celebrated with a religious parade by boat. The statue of the saint is placed on a fisherman boat and paraded alongside the coastline 😐
I'm from Vicenza. I still remember my grandma giving me present from Santa Lucia the 13th Dec, and from the Befana tin January, while on the 2th Dec she will just give us some candies and fresh fruit.
I think the connection to the winter solstice explains why it is more popular in Nordic countries. Whatever the pre-Christian tradition it replaced was also probably always considered more important the more north you go, as the effect of the solstice gets more extreme.
I was born in raised in very Cajun household in st martinville, Louisiana (the town was named for a catholic saint) and the church, St Martin De Tours still celebrates and observes St Lucy’s feast day every year on December 13th with the “saint Lucy’s Festival of Lights” and there are glowing angels handing from the trees and the entirety of the church grounds are lit with warm hued Christmas lights.
Since forever, on St. Lucy's day my mother says "Santa Lucia, il giorno più corto che ci sia" (in italian: Saint Lucy's, the shortest day ever), and today I've learnt why. Ty! (Also, she insists that we pray to St. Lucy, because everyone in the family wears glasses and she's supposed to protect the eyes...)
In Finnish there is a proverb "Lutun yö, Annan aatto, kolmasti kukko orrelta putoo" meaning "Lucia's night, Anna's eve (the day of Anna used to be on the 15th of December), three times the rooster falls from it's perch", aka the night is so long that even the rooster can't balance on it's perch all through it.
I am from the Caribbean Island of St. Lucia 🇱🇨. It is said the Island was discovered on the 13th of December. We have a celebration called the festival of light's, it is held on the night of the 12th of December. It is a festival of home made lanterns
When I was in 1st grade, my teacher decided to make the holidays the perfect time to learn about other cultures and how they celebrate. I got to dress up as Mary and sang spanish songs we sing in Puerto Rico. A few talked about Hanukkah and Kwanza. One kid talked about how Cambodia celebrated it. But the one to stand out was St. Lucy’s day. We loved seeing our friend dressed as her and give cookies out. I’m 31 now but I still remember this
In Norway, we sometimes call this Lussinatt - where the vette known as Lussi travels around and checks in on everyone's preparations for jol. Not sure about the chonology of which version came first, but vette is a creature from older Nordic folk beliefs.
Yes very much prechristian and as the local refused to give it up the church made it christian. Much as they did with Halloween in Scotland and Ireland, nothing to do with their church.
I love that you, Religion for breakfast, esoterica, and Angela work together and support each other. All four of you have a different role in communicating religious studies and it is great.
As a Swede I've always wondered why we were celebrating a Catholic saint, but it also being a pagan ritual and celebration makes so much more sense. Today it's more of a fun tradition than anything else. As for gingerbread men and Santas, those come from pre-school and elementary schools where the young boys were given options to partake. Not everyone wanted to wear a cone on their head and white dress. So to accommodate those kids, they allowed other Christmas related figures into the parade too. In the name of inclusivity. And it is absolutely profound to listen to professionals sing some of the more beautiful Christmas songs. At work we used to get a visit from the Adolf Fredrik's School of Music choir. They were like angels. Some celebrate this just so they can eat lussebullar without judgement, and some celebrate it as just something really nice and cozy to do on a dark, cold day. Since Lucia is a tradition that brings joy, there's no reason for us to remove it. It's just as big of a part of the Christmas season as the Christmas tree is. I just wish more dark haired girls were given the chance to be Lucia. I know this is changing, but the little 10 year old me still thinks it's unfair that I wasn't even considered because of my hair color.
I (dark haired) got the chance to be Lucia in my school when I was twelve. The girls names where put in a hat and my name was drawn, I got a day to decied if I wanted to do it or not. I didn't really feel like it so I intended to say no. But then I met a few boys from my class later that day who said I should say No cuz the blonde girl should be the Lucia, it's much prettier with a blonde Lucia. Now I thought the girl in our class with black hair should be Lucia, she had really long, really thick black hair, but I knew that she would never do it. So just to spite the boys and to make sure the short haired blonde din't get to do it, I took one for all us dark haired girls out there. :D
@@Anonymous-uw4sr Exclusive traditions shouldn't be continued. The original Sicilian Lucia was hardly a blonde, and light can better be brought with kindness and candles than with blond hair.
For me as a kid it was the end of one big dream when my parents explained that Finland's Lucia is always a girl whose mothertongue is Swedish and therefore I can never become her.
I'm reminded of the persistence of candlemass in the church of England, I have vivid memories of being handed an orange, wrapped in a ribbon, with a candle in it and processing down to the Abbey on a midwinter evening and being entranced by the luminous oddness of it all
I think this is Christingle as practised in my Anglican church also . The candle 🕯️ standing for Jesus as the light of the world , the orange as the world , the red ribbon as the love of god for the world through the sacrifice of Jesus , 4 cocktail sticks the 4 seasons/corners of the world , and the dried fruits as the Creation 🕊️
Although this mostly holds, there are actually some examples that have gone the other way around in religion - I am pretty sure the Jewish tu bishvat seder was derived from mystical teachings and then instituted, rather than vice versa.
Idk if all Croatians do this, but in my family it's tradition to make Božićna Pšenica on St. Lucy's Day. For those who don't know, Pšenica is a traditional ornamental wheat grass that's grown in a small vessel during the holiday season, and is sometimes wrapped in a ribbon or has a candle placed in the middle.
It's actually completely celebrated in Croatia, Slovakia, Czechia and Poland. Not sure why he mentioned that it's almost only in Scandinavia and Italy. The worship likely differs and the west Slavs (snow about you croats) celebrate her as a replacement for an old pagan witch ghost that sweeps evil and bad spirits out of people's homes.
@@tomasvrabec1845 We don’t celebrate the saint at all in Sweden. We have no existing saint tradition. This is an atmospheric event with light and beautiful songs during the darkest month of the year.
@@Crlmrtn You're saying Lucia isn't a a celebration of.. Lucia? It doesn't matter that YOU don't think of it like that. It doesn't matter that its meaning has adapted to the local context over centuries - religion always does this. The Lucia tradition is still permeated with St Lucy's (and generally catholic) imagery. So yes, it's an "atmospheric event with light and beautiful songs", like the main one: "Sankta Lucia". But is it also a "saint tradition"? It absolutely is..
That's literally what a celebration looks like...I understand that most swedes being atheist don't personally accept the religious aspect of st Lucia (or christmas) but you do celebrate it. @@Crlmrtn
I think it makes perfect sense that she is one of our most popular saints considering how little light we get, especially in pre-industrial times when there weren't lamps everywhere
Loved Lucia day since I studied Nordistics in the 90s, Every year the Swedish Institut invited in the dark morning hours to the procession and Glögg and Lussekatter. It was truly an enchanting experience, sitting in the dark and hearing the faint, but approaching voices and to see the rapidly nearing bright light from all the (mostly dripping) candles and suddenly - boom! there was light! And all the special smells ,,,,.. - loved it, and so did my kids .Remarkable experience, won´t miss it. And thanks to IKEA the custom is spreading 😀
St Lucy is also quite celebrated in Catalonia, where she is called Santa Llúcia and is also considered the patron of sight. The 13th December was the traditional date when nativity scenes were set up (to stand until February 2nd). Now all the Christmas decorations are usually set up earlier (and set down earlier too), but still the Christmas market in Barcelona (Fira de Santa Llúcia) is dedicated to her. Also, in the town of Gelida it is customary to cook a big soup and share it to the people after the mass, in remembrance of the saint's assistance to the poor. I had no idea, though, of the Swedish tradition, which looks really beatiful. Thanks for this great video!
In Rockford Illinois, a very Swedish and Italian immigrant town in the 50s and 60s we celebrated St Lucia's day with the candle parade and young girl in the crown of candles at our Swedish Covenant church. That was after a crazy night of 'kidnap caroling' where we went house to house after midnight, singing Christmas carols until they let us in, fed us, and then joined us for the next victims. I think the normal Swedish reserve demeanor needed some celebrations and rituals to keep from going mad...especially in the dark.
What a wonderful video. I love taking a peek behind the curtain to see how layered and complex and OLD some of our traditions are. Your videos always leave me in a good mood like that. Keep it up!
I can easily see how beautiful this can be. The single most breathtaking moment of my life was having the honor of witnessing the light procession at the International Military Pilgrimage in Lourdes. It's a procession with tens of thousands of people ending at the square before the basilica, everyone carrying a candle. There's gospels being read, songs being sung, and during the refrain of Ave Maria everyone raises their candles. A sea of light, it's so awe inspiring
Also a thing in Hungary. But the Pagan origins of this holiday are well understood here. Lucia's or Luca's persona is more similar to Christmas's Krampus or the Slavic Baba Yaga so more like a hag and some of the songs which used to be sung in the countryside were also pretty vulgar for Christian sensibilities. When we celebrated this in school it was quite tame compared to it. :D There's an emphasis on the Luca's stool and the wheat prepared for the holiday and sometimes celebrated similarly as in the Scandinavian countries but without all the goofy gingerbread and Santa stuff. We also celebrate Martinstag like mentioned from countries also celebrating this, we had these huge pyres one time and i remember it was raining that day. It was memorable. Not sure if the latter is universal or celebrated only in towns with Danube Swabian traditions. Kids will probably always think of it as the day they have to go through the chore making the lanterns with the pressure of getting bad grades if you don't. :)
I think part of why it's still so popular is because while it can be a really beautiful performance if done by professionals, it's also a really child-friendly tradition. As you mentioned, schools do it and even younger kids (my 3 year old is having lucia at daycare today -they've been practicing the songs for weeks). Children think it's fun with the dressing up and singing... And most of us have nice memories of doing it as kids, so we want our own kids to have that experience too, and we like to watch our kids doing it because it's cute, and so keeping the tradition going. Traditions that kids hate tend to not survive as well nowadays (my personal non-scholarly observation) because if you hated it as a kid and now with maybe less social pressure than in the past you have the choice to not do it, you probably won't do it 😅
The story I was told was that Saint Lucia appeared to some Norwegian sailors during a time of peril and they adopted her as a saint in Scandinavia after that.
@@CrlmrtnThe story dates back to the pre-Reformation era, when Scandinavia was still Catholic Christian rather than Lutheran. So yes, there _was_ a saint tradition
For those of you worrying about the fire hazard of a candle crown, When i was a Lucia my music teacher was sitting a few meters away from me with a water bucket in case i fainted. I have heard siminar stories from other people.
About the boys dressed as "star-boys" (stjärngossar) with cones on their heads, some dressed as little Santas and gingerbread men - as I've heard they were included when schools and kinder gartens started to celebrate Lucia and teachers had to invent roles for the boys. And then some songs and traditions from old Saint Stephens traditions, that were more "boys songs" were incorporated in the Lucia celebration, together with Christmas songs. For example a medieval folk- song about "Steven stable boy", which mostly is about his different horses. Maybe because in a mainly agricultural society horses was something people would relate to? Maybe more so than the biblical stories, which in those medieval times most people couldn't read about.
I live in Wisconsin and I went to an elementary school that taught us about cultures around the world, and we celebrated Lucia day! one girl was picked to be Lucia and we all sang around the school. It was fun
My parents hosted a Lucia Party, in Louisville Kentucky, in the late 60’s/early 70’s. A pre dawn breakfast feast with a young girl from the neighborhood chosen to wear the crown of candles.
its also celebrated in slovakia , i havent watched the video trough yet, but i tought i should tell you , thank you for the amazing vidoes by the way, its really a treat to have somebody as curious and capable as you bring theese concepts and historical happenings to perspective , Thank you 😁
I have known about St Lucia for a long time tho have never celebrated. Have also personally long known of Scandinavian love for Italians, my Danish Grandfather loved my Italian Grandmother. 💚Winter is really about celebrating the return of the light, candles lit here in California. Thanks for this beautiful video, heaing over to Angel's page now.
Indeed, we celebrate her every year in Norway! Really beautiful ritual and song Interesting to see the pagan syncretism; might indeed be the explanation for it.
I live in california, but I went to an odd elementery and middle school, my 2nd-4th grade teacher was of Swedish descent, and so every year we would did Saint Lucia's day celebrations with the candle crown and everything, it was really fun
We are looking really looking forward to lucia! Nice that you made a video about it! All children learn about it in school but not many might remember it!
Since Lucy’s name means “light,” it seems natural to celebrate her day with lights (which, until recently, meant candles). Lucy/Lucia is also the patron saint of eyesight, I suppose because her martyrdom supposedly included having her eyes plucked out. Medieval statues of her often shows her holding a plate on which there are two eyes.
I am from Slovakia and we also celebrate the feast of St. Lucia. It is celebrated primarily in kindergartens and elementary schools. There is a rumor that girls named Lucia will become witches in the future (that's why it was a very unpopular name in the past, nobody wanted a witch at home). During this holiday, girls dress up in white dresses and do various witch rituals as the prominent name of witches is celebrated. Above all, the name of future grooms and brides is divined. From St. Lucia's net to Christmas, there are various rituals associated with spider webs and other things I can't remember.
It was an important day in Croatia as well, it disappeared in the 1990s when Croatia was taken over by the customs and culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia. Otherwise, pumpkins were decorated on Saint Lucia, Halloween was not celebrated.
I will explain this in two sentences for for you: "Protestant countries do certainly celebrate saints' days. They just have nothing in particular to do with religion." Consider St. Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Halloween (All Saints' Day) in the United States. Important cultural moments in America, but not ones that are connected to religion, or not at least in the way they are commonly celebrated. Sweden's Lucia is not unique. St. Lucy is celebrated in Southern Italy, in a religious way, and in Sweden, in this sentimental 19th century way. But St. Lucy is also celebrated in Croatia, and Northern Italy, where she is the gift-giver figure, like St. Nicholas, or the Three Kings, on her feast day. St. Lucy is celebrated in Hungary and Slovenia with different folkloric customs, including the planting of Lucy wheat in pots, like Easter grass, and making Lucy pogaca, or buns, that have special significance for unmarried girls. There are folkloric Lucy celebrations elsewhere, and of course religious celebrations of St. Lucy in churches dedicated to her honor around the world. Other Protestant countries celebrate, for example, St. Nicholas Day, St. Martin (also Martin Luther's birthday) Michaelmas Day, St. George's Day, John the Baptist's Nativity (Midsummer) and many others. Part of the answer is that Lutheranism,at least, did not wipe the slate clean as far as the commemoration of saints. Neither entirely did the Church of England. So the situation with Protestantism and Mary and the saints is much more nuanced than the oversimplified idea that Protestantism instantaneously did away with the cultus of the saints would seem to present. That's how it can be explained in the one page on the Reformation in an elementary school history textbook, but obviously there is a lot more to say about the topic within the formal study of religion. Meanwhile, not all customs and traditions are very old, as you mention. Just because Lucy lived in the 3rd and 4th century and her veneration dates to that time, doesn't mean the Swedish Lucia celebrations are also ancient. We know that they spread from Sweden to the rest of Scandinavia very recently, and took on a religious tone, in some cases. It may be that Lucia, as we know it, dates only to the 19th century, much like Valentine's Day. It is a fun, and beautiful celebration, and it is also celebrated this way in Lutheran churches in America - but not in a particularly religious way, just part of Scandinavian-American folk life. And Saint Lucy herself was an amazing model of Christian virtue, service and generosity. Thank you for bringing attention to her life and story.
Hello from Montreal. When I was a boy, there was a particular cartoon that played on tv, in the U.S. (Tom and Jerry cartoon) where the character sings the Santa Lucia song. Hearing the song now, it brought back that memory to me.
I just wanna add that 2:49 boys are usually stjärngossar, and more recently gingerbread men and such. But Stjärngossar is the main. Atleast when i did lucia!
Fun fact! The small town in Michigan that I grew up in actually celebrates Lucia, I believe some Swedish exchange students brought it over in the 50's and we've celebrated it ever sense. ua-cam.com/video/sTLUae8IBtw/v-deo.html
I adore strange little tidbits of culture like this, absurdities hidden in plain sight. Speaking of Italian islands, have you considered dedicating a video to the religion in Malta? I've just been, and the language alone is fascinating! P.S. I still have a logo concept I could share with you, if you're interested!
I think you hit the nail on the head when talking about light in the darkness: I, vividly, remember the Lucia trains I saw as a child: completely dark room(s) and hallways, everyone is quiet and it is dark outside as well. Almost suffocating, honestly. Then you hear faint singing. As the singing grows louder, you also see the light of the living candles coming closer, and then there's this procession of young girls, clad in white and fire, and it brings light into the darkness: warmth to the cold. It can be a very profound experience. I suspect that our modern celebration is an amalgamation of several, older things: the saint herself, the pagan tradtions, but also the ever-present desire for light and warmth in dark December, the primal wish for fire if you will, and maybe also the wish to celebrate something a little less overtly religious than Christmas.
I think the origins of rituals and traditions are very interesting to learn about and that's why I'm here, but as someone who studied anthropology and just as a person who loves partaking in my own family and society's traditions, I recognize that it doesn't even matter because meanings change and the real function of these rituals is to bring people together and give us a sense of unity and purpose. It feels good to have traditions and benefits us socially and spiritually, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof. Edit: Loved your contextualization at the end. I'll definitely be checking out more of both of your channels!
What I have learned and confirmed by searches. Is that since ancient times, December 13 was a feast day linked to the midwinter solstice, according to the old calendar. Even though we changed the calendar, the celebration continued on December 13. People got really drunk and this bothered many. To change this, someone figured out that you can celebrate something else on that day. Since it was Lucia's day, it became natural to celebrate Lucia. It started at a university (Lund I think) and spread over time by the students to their home towns. It was never very big but lived for many decades. However, it became big in the 1950s when a newspaper decided that the readers would be allowed to vote for this year's Lucia. After that, the tradition grew very quickly and became something everyone celebrated. The characters that you dress up as have increased over the years, Santa/the elf and the gingerbread man are relatively recent additions.
I thought the newspaper thing was from the 1920:s. When my mum was a child in the 50:s and 60:s, people dressed up as whatever they liked for Lucia. There were always Lucia and the maidens (tärnor), but also for example a baker or a chimney sweeper. Crossdressing was common.
Imagine before electricity and gas, how dark it would be. Candles would be expensive before stearin, spermaceti and paraffin wax appeared in the 19th century. It was not something people would use a lot of. So in Scandinavia, they would be in a lot of darkness. I've talked with and old who remembered back to when she was young, she would sit with the ironcast oven open, so she could read her homeworks. In such dark times, the joy of a light festival must have made quite the impact on people. Something hard to imagine now when we chase away the darkness with electricity, we don't really get to experience long term darkness anymore.
Lucia is celebrated in other countries also for example Poland , Croatia some places in Hungary. She was one of the early Christians before the Church split into East and West so its a bit strange that she became a Catholic Saint.
@@aramisone7198What do you mean? The Catholic Church & the non-Catholic Eastern churches recognize all saints that existed before their splits in common. Like St. George
I think you left out Finland - as I recall it, they celebrate Lucia as well! Another Saint we still celebrate is Saint Martin, with a feast the evening before Saint Martins Day - which also just happens to be in the end of the harvest season and overlapping with All Hallows’ Eve, and the Pagan celebrations there undoubtedly where part of life before Christianity….
Lucia in Finland is a bit odd, since ... well, the traditional understanding I was taught, as a Swedish-speaking Finn in the 90s, was that this was something only Swedish-speaking people in Finland do. This is my experience later in life as well - most Finnish-speaking acquaintances have no idea what it is. This unfamiliarity reached a very interesting extreme in the early 2000s, when Folkhälsan r.f. (a non-profit association that works with a variety of things - teaching kids to swim, charity, retirement homes, but also organized until recently at least the biggest Lucia event in Finland every year) patented Lucia and the accompanying celebrations. Apparently, the patent handler had never heard of it before, and so figured it was a new thing and granted their patent. Looking in this comment section, though, it seems people all over the country are celebrating it nowadays, so maybe it's spread into Finnish Finland as well since I was a kid?
@@markusmiekk-oja3717 Thank you for your response. I had a Karate Instructor who was from Finland, and judging by how awful her Swedish was when we went on camps and at tournaments in Sweden, I highly doubt she was from the Swedish speaking part - as I recall it she were from somewhere in the Northernmost Eastern part, but I don't know how many speak Swedish or have Swedish ancestry there. But this was back in the 90's and she had been Lucia several times as a kid, I remember we joked a lot about it, because back when I was a kid in Denmark it was very often the pretty tall blonde girl who ended up being the Lucia, but my instructor were definitely not a tall blonde, (but she was still pretty, very smart, and really really funny). She's probably in her late 60's today, so it must have been used in at least some parts of Finland, aside from the Swedish speaking parts? But it might have been in a few smaller communities - and it might very well have been due to some level of Swedish or Norwegian influence I guess... But anyway, thank you so much for taking your time to respond - the part about taking a patent really made me laugh... I needed that!
@@markusmiekk-oja3717 I studied and lived in primarily Finnish speaking cities and towns although there were large Swedish-speaking minorities around in many of those cities/towns and we celebrated St. Lucia in primary schools. But that was at least 20+ years ago. I believe in some schools we even chose our own Lucias and I remember at least one occasion where we were in church and Lucia came there.
I attended a Lutheran church while growing up in the US. We would celebrate "Santa Lucia" every December. It was, by that point, just "one of the things we do". The local chapter had been started by a small group that included people with both Swedish and German roots.
@@pedrod854 no. Each year one girl was randomly chosen. The procession was through the school hallways. All pupils had costumes and sang the St lucia song. I can remember the soliminity of the moment. I would leave work just to watch. obrigado
Looks like in Finland it is more common in the Swedish-speaking areas (well not really a surprise). Helsinki and Turku seem to have a celebration/event; in Tampere I have never heard of it. The main main page I found about it is from the Swedish Finn Historical Society.
I’ve hear on Swedish radio P1 once that “Lusse” is an old Swedish word for midvinterblot that was what was celebrated on the 13th in the old calendar. My guess is that people continue celebrating it.
St Lucia day is apparently also widely celebrated in Slavic countries, where she is relied upon to protect people from witches and malicious supernatural beings
I'm from the Netherlands and the waldorf elementary school i went to celebrated many different feast days, including st. Lucy's day. A central element in our celebration was a big spiral maze laid out from spruce tree branches. All the kids would spend the day making a candle holder from clay and later in the day everyone would walk the maze and place their lit candle. At the end a kid chosen to be saint lucy would lead a procession through the maze to light the big candle in the middle, with burning candles in her hair. I'm so happy magic was prioritised over fire safety 😅 it was truly beautiful.
Thank you for another fascinating video. I’ve always considered Saint Lucy as the Christianised version of the Roman Goddess Juno Lucina, whose name clearly links the associations with light, childbirth etc. Were any of the Norse Goddesses similarly linked with these themes and celebrated around this time of year, prior to being Christianised as this saint?
The claim that 13th December was the shortest day of the year under the Julian calendar for a very short while. The winter solstice moved backwards by roughly a day per century until Pope Gregory reset the calendar to as it was in the 4th century. So the argument that S. Lucia was celebrated for this reason assumes that the holiday was introduced around the 12th century.
As many comments have pointed out, Finland also celebrates Lucia a little bit (I think some of the pictures you showed were actually from Finland). There is an organisation that actually chooses Finland's "official Lucia" and they have a televised event from the Helsinki Cathedral. It's actually interesting because Lucia has traditionally been celebrated by the Swedish speaking minority but it has gotten more popular over the years with the whole population. I'm from Turku, which is a bilingual city so I've always known what Lucia was. In my high school (fully Finnish speaking) the choir performed a small Lucia procession where they sung in Finnish and Swedish. I wasn't aware that there are still many Finnish speaking Finns that didn't know about this tradition until more recently, because to me it has always had (a small) place in the Christmas season. Fascinating how traditions develop.
You are mistaken. Those aren’t the only people that celebrate St. Lucia’s feast day. She is also celebrated by Orthodox Christians. That means dozens of countries.
I live in Illinois and went to an Evangelical college; it didn't allow dancing, except at Junior Senior and the Santa Lucia dance. The dance was loved by most people, except the ones who hated it because they knew it was Catholic.
Where I come from in Brazil we would put candles on the windows on Saint Lucy day, there we call her Santa Luzia, but also the name Lúcia/Lúcio is a very common name in Brazil, but not commonly associated with the Saint.
St Lucy is also widely celebrated in some parts of the philippines. The saint acquired the title of a miracle worker among Filipinos. The phrase "pwera sakit" or afuera sakit (meaning go away, sickness) is a trademark of her feast here. Hymns used for her feast here also uses the melody of the italian folk song
Very late to the party, and perhaps someone else has already mentioned this in an older comment, but a detail I find significant, is that - at least in Denmark - the Lucia procession takes place before dawn, almost literally bringing the light of the day in the winter darkness. The opening lines of the Lucia song also goes something like this: "Now the light is carried forward Proudly on your crown" Also just one last point to add, which I feel is significant symbollically: The girl at the head of the procession wearing the candle-lit crown is called the Lucia-bride. And one last thing: We don't have Lucia-buns in Denmark 🙁 The Swedes definitely got the better thing going on with that addition to the day 😄
I remember how I didn't want to dress up as a tärna during St. Lucia, but instead decided "I want to be a tree!", and so I came to school in a tree costume with Christmas decorations on me, lol
I think you’re confusing a childrens play with a professional lucia choir. You’ll only see a gingerbread man / santa in a childrens lucia celebration (but that’s usually only for the really small children.) In a professional setting, or basically any choir with teens or older it will only be the white dresses. Even the men wear those (but sometimes maybe just a shirt with black pants as well.)
Many people in Scandinavia might ignore that the Santa Lucia song is actually a Napolitan song about the Santa Lucia island of Naples (The kingdom of Sicily extended to Naples).
Reminds me also regarding the witch and her followers, of the earlier Holda and the Wild Hunt. Holda and her southern cousin Perchta in the traditions are also both connected to a witch figure and a benevolent figure. Connected to winter and the winter solstice, next to rituals of holding candles, lamps or other sources of light. The northern version, linked to Scandinavia according to Marija Gimbutas is Frigg and Frejya. Looking at the similarities in ritual that survives in other regions in Germany, and then also at 6:00 the reference made to Lussi and her followers. Make me suspect that there could be a connection here with this. But that is then more of a speculation. What we do know about Holda is that there is a witch figure also connected to her, that normally roams around and steals cattle, or otherwise brings harm to the community. Where her other side as Holda that is benevolent is connected to the carrying of light. We can see this also with Perchta. Another cousin of Holda. Having similar rituals connected to light, and a duality of character. Benevolent and potentially dangerous in a witch form. I happen to be somewhat of an expert on Holda and Wotan, and other linked Proto-Indo-European traditions. In the more Southern variants of this pagan tradition there is first the light ritual, followed by the perchtenlaufen ritual, connected to fertility and the shooing away of the spirits that can cause harm. I happen to also know people personally who practice the rituals linked to Perchta, and this aligns well with what you said about Lucia and Lussi.
There is also a Biblical Huldah, styled as a prophetess, who ran a ‘school for young prophetesses’ at Jerusalem. The entrance thereof, although now filled in with bricks, is still called the Huldah Gate. My Swedish great grandmother was also named Hulda, and she called herself, tongue in cheek, a ‘seeress in Israel’ when something she foresaw came to pass. My own association to her name includes Andersen’s tale “Mother Elderberry”- a magical gestalt for the ability to retrieve evidence of the past and predict the future. The figure of the Huldre in Nordic mythology, a beautiful woman, who, with a gaping hole in her hindquarters serving as a portal to the underworld, knows and keeps the secrets of the dead. And finally, the synchronicity of actually viewing Gimbutas’s papers archived at the Pacifica Institute in California. Thank you for sharing your observations. Hulda Stone
@@RebeccaStone-e8q Hey. Thank you so much for sharing this! That means to much to me. I am so happy about this. Yes. I know about the Hulder, and I knew about the connection to them also stealing the cattle, but also being linked to fertility, and luck in hunting. Though the connection to the underworld is so cool! I knew with Hulda this link, and also various other similar figures as mentioned by Gimbutas. As I read her work. Next to that of Dumezil on Juno, who through Feronia (archaic Juno) is also linked to the underworld, next to lupercalia (Juno Lucina).
As a Norwegian 10th grader, I do enjoy these celebrations. Our school celebrates this every single December and the 7th graders are the one who preform. The main Lucia cosplayer, from my experience from 7th grade, is usually the girl who is known to be the most "beautiful" or "popular". And yes, a lot of people were offended when they weren't chosen to play Lucia🤣
Had to do a double take when he said "Scandinavia is a protestant country" at 10:10 - not because the scandinavian countries are mostly atheistic these days, but because as a norwegian, I was surprised to see this swede thinks we still are one country.
Pretty sure he intended to say "region" or something "Sweden" instead of "Scandinavia", but yeah, still pretty embarrassing mistake. Besides, we would much rather have Finland back instead /s
Lucia happens to be my birthday, so I have of course a bit of a special interest in the topic. I was hoping there might be some more about St Stephan and how his song in the celebration adds a horse connection that apparently didn't exist in biblical canon and may have some pre christian roots. In different versions of his song "Staffan var en stalledräng", he has something of a protector role. He goes out to kill a wolf, and then the song ends with everybody having their christmas needs of porridge, pig and candles met. His connection to Christmas is also based on legend rather than canon, as he originally was active something like 35 AD, but legend has him tell king Herod that the savior has been born.
She is celebrated in not only in Scandinavia in fact in all of the Nordic countries that means Finland and Iceland too, not just the Scandinavian ones (Sweden, Norway, Denmark) and ofc she is celebrated in Italy and Greece too for Sicily had been Grek for such a long time then and had just been conquered by the Romans but the family of St.Lucia had Greek origin but her mother married a Roman man but otherwise the family were Greek.
In Northern Italy, traditionally christmas gifts where actually given on Saint Lucia day, but now we are loosing this tradition. The standard present for Saint Lucia day (so the christmas present) where Mandarins or Oranges, and they weren't brought by Santa, but by Il Bambin Gesù (The little Jesus)
In the area where I live in Norway, we still celebrate Lossi on the 12th of december. Children dresses in costumes and goes knocking on doors to get sweets. Similar to Halloween in a way. But I believe this tradition is kind of older than the Lucia tradition, and was more common throughout Scandinavia before. The Dalane region in Southwest Norway, is the only place I've heard of with such a celebration.
The danish tradition is quite similar to what you explain in Sweden. But in Denmark the Girl/Woman who walk in front with the crown with lights in is called the Lucia bride. And while walking the progression they sing a specific song. See below. The progressions are generally formed in schools, scouts, sports clubs etc. It is normal for the progression to happen at the school, but after that they will also go to old age homes and hospitals to walk the progression. After walking the progression the choir will sing other Christmas songs. Nu bæres lyset frem stolt på din krone rundt om i hus og hjem sangen skal tone nu på Lucia-dag hilser vort vennelag Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia Her ved vor ønskefest sangen skal klinge gaver til hver en gæst glad vil du bringe skænk os af lykkens væld lige til livets kvæld Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia
It is very important to knows this; and it is always forgotten or misunderstod: The only reason the name Lucia is in the title of this tradition is because a man went down to italy and heard a song that was sung there. Since long time ago a tradition called Lussebrud was happening with its cortege of women and men who came to visit houses in the morning the 13th of December. Back then, Lussebrud had NOTHING to do with Lucia in Italy. That is a later change. It was all a coincidence. 1. First we have Lucia. From internet: Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy) is celebrated in Italy on 13 December. She is patron saint of her home town, Syracuse. 2. Then they named a harbour/city part to Lucia in Naples, Italy. 3. Then a song came to be about a fisherman who always longed back to his harbour; "St Lucia". 4. Then a man from sweden came to Italy, heard and like the song - and took it home and they sang in with a different lyrics. 5. Stockholms Daily Post created a competition 1927 called "Swedens Lucia". They did not use the term Lussebrud for some reason. Therefor many people believe that Lucia is the origin of this tradition - and it is not. Just a few facts there.
We where told that Lucia was once a young girl who was hounded by a man who wanted to marry her for her wonderful beautiful eyes, and when she was on her way to a convent (I think) any ways she was on the road, the man stoped her and she had had enough so she picked her eyes out and gave them to him, and that’s why she wears a red rope around her waist symbolizing the blood from her eyes
Interesting. I did not know that Lucia was not a thing outside of Nordic countries, at least Finland besides Sweden. I always thought it was normal christian or at least Lutheran thing around the world.
Watch Angela's Companion Video Here: ua-cam.com/video/hRibH2NCu-8/v-deo.html
😃 It's very useful! 😃
"it's strange"
No, because Lucia is as much a remnant of pre-christian culture as anything else.
So catholicism and protestantism makes absolutely no difference.
"syncretised"
No, you most likely got it backwards.
Pre-christian traditions survived by masquerading as christian...
Try investigating how the use of runescript has recently been found to probably be relatively normal in Nordic nations up until the mid 19th century.
And up until at least 18th century, it is likely that it was very commonly known and used.
And we're not finding traces of it, because it was used on highly perishable writing media, like bark, wood, waxtablets and the like.
But the church still reported that literacy was nonexistant. Despite the priests effectively had to know how common runes likely were.
It was just part of the background culture. People kept it from competing with christian latin, and as such, the church didn't care.
"cant be a connection"
Of course there can be a connection. Santa is based on Yule-traditions, and with the calender getting messed with, of course santa needs to be included with Lucia. Or maybe he's there as a show of "i'm coming...". There's many possibilities really.
I've read several possible explanations for the gingerbread peoples and they range all the way from "oh dear..." via "OMG!!!" to "not only plausible but also not horrible".
For example, there's a lot of traditions around food over the course of yule and x-mas. And that's most likely the origin, together with how rare it was to get many of the expensive spices, like those used in gingerbread.
There is a very logical link between the most well-known saint and mystic of Sweden , Saint Birgitta, who is the only saint that has founded her religious community in Rome.
Who needs local traditions when you can just borrow someone else's?
In Finnish elementary and middle schools, being selected as the year's Lucia for the Lucia mass was and is still something similar to being prom queen in US. Usually the most popular and pretty blonde girl won the title.
A Finn here, and can confirm this. Can also confirm that no one has any idea of the history of Lucia's day. It's just a thing that schools do.
Same in Sweden
Yes, well we Northern Europens do like our girls pretty and blond. It's the same in Scotland. Although we don't have this particular tradition. 🏴🤝🏽🇫🇮
In Jyväskylä, Finland, we were taught in basic school that Lucia's day is an old remnant of the time when it was celebrated as the midwinter solstice, but when the calendars were reformed, the celebration moved away from its original place. But Lucia's day is not as messed up as Nordic Christmas, which was originally a harvest festival celebrated in autumn, for example the Finnish kekri festival, before it was moved to midwinter.
That was litteraly the thing that happened in my class here in Denmark 😅
Side note. Lucia is one of the few holidays that hasn’t been commercialized for some reason. It’s just candles and “lussebullar”.
Same in Norway. We call the buns «lussekatter». In schools, the kids walk into every classroom (which are dark) and bring lussekatter to everyone.
@@Blaatann53we say lussekatter in Sweden also.
Well, I mean, how are you gonna commercialize it? Sell Lucia crowns and costumes? We sorta already do that, it's just not a tradition most people are expected to actively participate in.
See, what _could_ theoretically have been commercialized is the whole stjärngosse ("star boy") part, since it ties into Staffansritten, which back in the day was pretty much just a more hardcore yuletide version of going trick or treating for Halloween.
I have nothing to back this up, but I'm fairly certain it's remaining this lowkey because of which countries celebrate it. If it was a thing in the US for example, you _know_ their corporations would find some way to monetize the soul out of it, which would then spread to every other country where it's celebrated.
Careful, big lussebulle is coming for you
As an Italian, I can add that S. Lucia is not even a very common "holyday" here. I'd say it's a day of celebration only in Sicily, but definitely almost ignored in the mainland, except maybe for single cities (Venice, for example, because it's where's Lucia's body currently is).
It's still interesting to know that in Sweden something happens that I would expect from Southern Italy - although it doesn't look like you spend that day eating fried things like they do here. :D
In bergamo, it's her that brings gifts rather than baby jesus/santa
Same in Spain. It's celebrated locally in different parts but not widely as a national holiday. My grandma's name was Lucía and the patron saint of her village was Santa Lucía. There it is celebrated with a religious parade by boat. The statue of the saint is placed on a fisherman boat and paraded alongside the coastline 😐
Not only Sweden, all over Scandinavia, and as I recall it, Finland as well!
We celebrate St Lucia in Tuscany.
I'm from Vicenza. I still remember my grandma giving me present from Santa Lucia the 13th Dec, and from the Befana tin January, while on the 2th Dec she will just give us some candies and fresh fruit.
I think the connection to the winter solstice explains why it is more popular in Nordic countries. Whatever the pre-Christian tradition it replaced was also probably always considered more important the more north you go, as the effect of the solstice gets more extreme.
Pre Christian "lussi", Google it.
Always lovely collaborating with you, Filip! Keep up the great work 🤓
A pleasure, as always!
I was born in raised in very Cajun household in st martinville, Louisiana (the town was named for a catholic saint) and the church, St Martin De Tours still celebrates and observes St Lucy’s feast day every year on December 13th with the “saint Lucy’s Festival of Lights” and there are glowing angels handing from the trees and the entirety of the church grounds are lit with warm hued Christmas lights.
Interesting! ~~~regards from Finland.
It sounds beautiful. These celebrations of light in the darkest days really uplift the spirit.
Since forever, on St. Lucy's day my mother says "Santa Lucia, il giorno più corto che ci sia" (in italian: Saint Lucy's, the shortest day ever), and today I've learnt why. Ty!
(Also, she insists that we pray to St. Lucy, because everyone in the family wears glasses and she's supposed to protect the eyes...)
She must have done a poor job then, if everyone is wearing glasses.
According to legend she was blinded and therefore the patron saint for the blind (and of poor eyesight, I guess).
In Finnish there is a proverb "Lutun yö, Annan aatto, kolmasti kukko orrelta putoo" meaning "Lucia's night, Anna's eve (the day of Anna used to be on the 15th of December), three times the rooster falls from it's perch", aka the night is so long that even the rooster can't balance on it's perch all through it.
who can resist a good pizza party? 🍕
I am from the Caribbean Island of St. Lucia 🇱🇨.
It is said the Island was discovered on the 13th of December. We have a celebration called the festival of light's, it is held on the night of the 12th of December. It is a festival of home made lanterns
I figure the celebration on the night of the 12th is because traditionally, sunset has been seen as the point when the day changes.
That’s wonderful
"Because even the Vikings knew that a little Italian flair can spice up their fjords! 🇸🇪🍝⚔ #SaintlySagas"
When I was in 1st grade, my teacher decided to make the holidays the perfect time to learn about other cultures and how they celebrate. I got to dress up as Mary and sang spanish songs we sing in Puerto Rico. A few talked about Hanukkah and Kwanza. One kid talked about how Cambodia celebrated it. But the one to stand out was St. Lucy’s day. We loved seeing our friend dressed as her and give cookies out. I’m 31 now but I still remember this
In Norway, we sometimes call this Lussinatt - where the vette known as Lussi travels around and checks in on everyone's preparations for jol. Not sure about the chonology of which version came first, but vette is a creature from older Nordic folk beliefs.
The old tradition in Sweden was also Lusse not Lucia.
Yes very much prechristian and as the local refused to give it up the church made it christian.
Much as they did with Halloween in Scotland and Ireland, nothing to do with their church.
❤
@@alicelund147 Still remains so in some popular lucia songs. "Lusselelle" comes to mind immediately, has zero actual references to lucia herself.
@@rasmus6705 Or the bread lussebullar.
I love that you, Religion for breakfast, esoterica, and Angela work together and support each other. All four of you have a different role in communicating religious studies and it is great.
As a Swede I've always wondered why we were celebrating a Catholic saint, but it also being a pagan ritual and celebration makes so much more sense.
Today it's more of a fun tradition than anything else. As for gingerbread men and Santas, those come from pre-school and elementary schools where the young boys were given options to partake. Not everyone wanted to wear a cone on their head and white dress. So to accommodate those kids, they allowed other Christmas related figures into the parade too. In the name of inclusivity.
And it is absolutely profound to listen to professionals sing some of the more beautiful Christmas songs. At work we used to get a visit from the Adolf Fredrik's School of Music choir. They were like angels.
Some celebrate this just so they can eat lussebullar without judgement, and some celebrate it as just something really nice and cozy to do on a dark, cold day.
Since Lucia is a tradition that brings joy, there's no reason for us to remove it. It's just as big of a part of the Christmas season as the Christmas tree is.
I just wish more dark haired girls were given the chance to be Lucia.
I know this is changing, but the little 10 year old me still thinks it's unfair that I wasn't even considered because of my hair color.
Blonde is tradition, and it's because it's about light, Blonde hair is light
@@Anonymous-uw4sr Makes sense right?
I (dark haired) got the chance to be Lucia in my school when I was twelve. The girls names where put in a hat and my name was drawn, I got a day to decied if I wanted to do it or not. I didn't really feel like it so I intended to say no. But then I met a few boys from my class later that day who said I should say No cuz the blonde girl should be the Lucia, it's much prettier with a blonde Lucia. Now I thought the girl in our class with black hair should be Lucia, she had really long, really thick black hair, but I knew that she would never do it. So just to spite the boys and to make sure the short haired blonde din't get to do it, I took one for all us dark haired girls out there. :D
@@Anonymous-uw4sr Exclusive traditions shouldn't be continued. The original Sicilian Lucia was hardly a blonde, and light can better be brought with kindness and candles than with blond hair.
For me as a kid it was the end of one big dream when my parents explained that Finland's Lucia is always a girl whose mothertongue is Swedish and therefore I can never become her.
I'm reminded of the persistence of candlemass in the church of England, I have vivid memories of being handed an orange, wrapped in a ribbon, with a candle in it and processing down to the Abbey on a midwinter evening and being entranced by the luminous oddness of it all
I think this is Christingle as practised in my Anglican church also . The candle 🕯️ standing for Jesus as the light of the world , the orange as the world , the red ribbon as the love of god for the world through the sacrifice of Jesus , 4 cocktail sticks the 4 seasons/corners of the world , and the dried fruits as the Creation 🕊️
Candlemas is the 2nd February in the Western calendar, and Christingle services are usually held before Christmas day, aren't they?
@@georgem7502 you're quite right, i have no idea why the parish I grew up in used the names interchangeably
'Rituals are performed first and explained secondly.' That's a nice phrase.
Although this mostly holds, there are actually some examples that have gone the other way around in religion - I am pretty sure the Jewish tu bishvat seder was derived from mystical teachings and then instituted, rather than vice versa.
It's also celebrated in Croatia. Lovely video, as always!
Idk if all Croatians do this, but in my family it's tradition to make Božićna Pšenica on St. Lucy's Day.
For those who don't know, Pšenica is a traditional ornamental wheat grass that's grown in a small vessel during the holiday season, and is sometimes wrapped in a ribbon or has a candle placed in the middle.
It's actually completely celebrated in Croatia, Slovakia, Czechia and Poland. Not sure why he mentioned that it's almost only in Scandinavia and Italy.
The worship likely differs and the west Slavs (snow about you croats) celebrate her as a replacement for an old pagan witch ghost that sweeps evil and bad spirits out of people's homes.
@@tomasvrabec1845 We don’t celebrate the saint at all in Sweden. We have no existing saint tradition. This is an atmospheric event with light and beautiful songs during the darkest month of the year.
@@Crlmrtn You're saying Lucia isn't a a celebration of.. Lucia? It doesn't matter that YOU don't think of it like that. It doesn't matter that its meaning has adapted to the local context over centuries - religion always does this. The Lucia tradition is still permeated with St Lucy's (and generally catholic) imagery. So yes, it's an "atmospheric event with light and beautiful songs", like the main one: "Sankta Lucia". But is it also a "saint tradition"? It absolutely is..
That's literally what a celebration looks like...I understand that most swedes being atheist don't personally accept the religious aspect of st Lucia (or christmas) but you do celebrate it. @@Crlmrtn
I think it makes perfect sense that she is one of our most popular saints considering how little light we get, especially in pre-industrial times when there weren't lamps everywhere
Short version: Look, we know this tradition doesn't make sense, but winters are dark and cold up here. We need the Lightbringer Princess.
Loved Lucia day since I studied Nordistics in the 90s, Every year the Swedish Institut invited in the dark morning hours to the procession and Glögg and Lussekatter. It was truly an enchanting experience, sitting in the dark and hearing the faint, but approaching voices and to see the rapidly nearing bright light from all the (mostly dripping) candles and suddenly - boom! there was light! And all the special smells ,,,,.. - loved it, and so did my kids .Remarkable experience, won´t miss it. And thanks to IKEA the custom is spreading 😀
Awesome!! I love Nordic culture
St Lucy is also quite celebrated in Catalonia, where she is called Santa Llúcia and is also considered the patron of sight. The 13th December was the traditional date when nativity scenes were set up (to stand until February 2nd). Now all the Christmas decorations are usually set up earlier (and set down earlier too), but still the Christmas market in Barcelona (Fira de Santa Llúcia) is dedicated to her. Also, in the town of Gelida it is customary to cook a big soup and share it to the people after the mass, in remembrance of the saint's assistance to the poor.
I had no idea, though, of the Swedish tradition, which looks really beatiful. Thanks for this great video!
In Rockford Illinois, a very Swedish and Italian immigrant town in the 50s and 60s we celebrated St Lucia's day with the candle parade and young girl in the crown of candles at our Swedish Covenant church. That was after a crazy night of 'kidnap caroling' where we went house to house after midnight, singing Christmas carols until they let us in, fed us, and then joined us for the next victims. I think the normal Swedish reserve demeanor needed some celebrations and rituals to keep from going mad...especially in the dark.
kidnap caroling sounds a bit like an old swedish yule tradition
What a wonderful video. I love taking a peek behind the curtain to see how layered and complex and OLD some of our traditions are. Your videos always leave me in a good mood like that. Keep it up!
I can easily see how beautiful this can be. The single most breathtaking moment of my life was having the honor of witnessing the light procession at the International Military Pilgrimage in Lourdes. It's a procession with tens of thousands of people ending at the square before the basilica, everyone carrying a candle. There's gospels being read, songs being sung, and during the refrain of Ave Maria everyone raises their candles. A sea of light, it's so awe inspiring
Also a thing in Hungary.
But the Pagan origins of this holiday are well understood here.
Lucia's or Luca's persona is more similar to Christmas's Krampus or the Slavic Baba Yaga so more like a hag and some of the songs which used to be sung in the countryside were also pretty vulgar for Christian sensibilities.
When we celebrated this in school it was quite tame compared to it. :D
There's an emphasis on the Luca's stool and the wheat prepared for the holiday and sometimes celebrated similarly as in the Scandinavian countries but without all the goofy gingerbread and Santa stuff.
We also celebrate Martinstag like mentioned from countries also celebrating this, we had these huge pyres one time and i remember it was raining that day.
It was memorable.
Not sure if the latter is universal or celebrated only in towns with Danube Swabian traditions.
Kids will probably always think of it as the day they have to go through the chore making the lanterns with the pressure of getting bad grades if you don't. :)
I think part of why it's still so popular is because while it can be a really beautiful performance if done by professionals, it's also a really child-friendly tradition. As you mentioned, schools do it and even younger kids (my 3 year old is having lucia at daycare today -they've been practicing the songs for weeks). Children think it's fun with the dressing up and singing... And most of us have nice memories of doing it as kids, so we want our own kids to have that experience too, and we like to watch our kids doing it because it's cute, and so keeping the tradition going. Traditions that kids hate tend to not survive as well nowadays (my personal non-scholarly observation) because if you hated it as a kid and now with maybe less social pressure than in the past you have the choice to not do it, you probably won't do it 😅
This was beautiful. Thank you!!
The story I was told was that Saint Lucia appeared to some Norwegian sailors during a time of peril and they adopted her as a saint in Scandinavia after that.
We have no existing saint tradition in Scandinavia.
@@CrlmrtnAlla helgons dag.
@@CrlmrtnThe story dates back to the pre-Reformation era, when Scandinavia was still Catholic Christian rather than Lutheran. So yes, there _was_ a saint tradition
@@Crlmrtn Midsummer in Denmark is celebrated in a tradition we call "Saint Hans eve" with large bonfires.
For those of you worrying about the fire hazard of a candle crown,
When i was a Lucia my music teacher was sitting a few meters away from me with a water bucket in case i fainted. I have heard siminar stories from other people.
When we did it, the first person after the Lucia bride was always tasked with keeping an eye on the crown candles.
Not att my school I think we had electric lights
About the boys dressed as "star-boys" (stjärngossar) with cones on their heads, some dressed as little Santas and gingerbread men - as I've heard they were included when schools and kinder gartens started to celebrate Lucia and teachers had to invent roles for the boys.
And then some songs and traditions from old Saint Stephens traditions, that were more "boys songs" were incorporated in the Lucia celebration, together with Christmas songs. For example a medieval folk- song about "Steven stable boy", which mostly is about his different horses. Maybe because in a mainly agricultural society horses was something people would relate to? Maybe more so than the biblical stories, which in those medieval times most people couldn't read about.
I live in Wisconsin and I went to an elementary school that taught us about cultures around the world, and we celebrated Lucia day! one girl was picked to be Lucia and we all sang around the school. It was fun
My parents hosted a Lucia Party, in Louisville Kentucky, in the late 60’s/early 70’s. A pre dawn breakfast feast with a young girl from the neighborhood chosen to wear the crown of candles.
its also celebrated in slovakia , i havent watched the video trough yet, but i tought i should tell you , thank you for the amazing vidoes by the way, its really a treat to have somebody as curious and capable as you bring theese concepts and historical happenings to perspective , Thank you 😁
Tack!
I have known about St Lucia for a long time tho have never celebrated. Have also personally long known of Scandinavian love for Italians, my Danish Grandfather loved my Italian Grandmother. 💚Winter is really about celebrating the return of the light, candles lit here in California. Thanks for this beautiful video, heaing over to Angel's page now.
I highly recommend a reading of John Donne's poem, 'A Nocturnal upon St Lucie's Day' .
Indeed, we celebrate her every year in Norway! Really beautiful ritual and song
Interesting to see the pagan syncretism; might indeed be the explanation for it.
I live in california, but I went to an odd elementery and middle school, my 2nd-4th grade teacher was of Swedish descent, and so every year we would did Saint Lucia's day celebrations with the candle crown and everything, it was really fun
We are looking really looking forward to lucia! Nice that you made a video about it! All children learn about it in school but not many might remember it!
Since Lucy’s name means “light,” it seems natural to celebrate her day with lights (which, until recently, meant candles).
Lucy/Lucia is also the patron saint of eyesight, I suppose because her martyrdom supposedly included having her eyes plucked out. Medieval statues of her often shows her holding a plate on which there are two eyes.
Good thing that the tradition doesn't include having the procession be blindfolded. That would be quite the hazard, given the candles involved. 😀
I am from Slovakia and we also celebrate the feast of St. Lucia. It is celebrated primarily in kindergartens and elementary schools. There is a rumor that girls named Lucia will become witches in the future (that's why it was a very unpopular name in the past, nobody wanted a witch at home). During this holiday, girls dress up in white dresses and do various witch rituals as the prominent name of witches is celebrated. Above all, the name of future grooms and brides is divined. From St. Lucia's net to Christmas, there are various rituals associated with spider webs and other things I can't remember.
It was an important day in Croatia as well, it disappeared in the 1990s when Croatia was taken over by the customs and culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia. Otherwise, pumpkins were decorated on Saint Lucia, Halloween was not celebrated.
I hadn't heard of this before, what was the naški/croatian name for it? I'd like to check this out and even revive it with my family.
Halloween was originally from Britain/Ireland something about chasing away spirits.
I will explain this in two sentences for for you: "Protestant countries do certainly celebrate saints' days. They just have nothing in particular to do with religion." Consider St. Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Halloween (All Saints' Day) in the United States. Important cultural moments in America, but not ones that are connected to religion, or not at least in the way they are commonly celebrated. Sweden's Lucia is not unique. St. Lucy is celebrated in Southern Italy, in a religious way, and in Sweden, in this sentimental 19th century way. But St. Lucy is also celebrated in Croatia, and Northern Italy, where she is the gift-giver figure, like St. Nicholas, or the Three Kings, on her feast day. St. Lucy is celebrated in Hungary and Slovenia with different folkloric customs, including the planting of Lucy wheat in pots, like Easter grass, and making Lucy pogaca, or buns, that have special significance for unmarried girls. There are folkloric Lucy celebrations elsewhere, and of course religious celebrations of St. Lucy in churches dedicated to her honor around the world. Other Protestant countries celebrate, for example, St. Nicholas Day, St. Martin (also Martin Luther's birthday) Michaelmas Day, St. George's Day, John the Baptist's Nativity (Midsummer) and many others. Part of the answer is that Lutheranism,at least, did not wipe the slate clean as far as the commemoration of saints. Neither entirely did the Church of England. So the situation with Protestantism and Mary and the saints is much more nuanced than the oversimplified idea that Protestantism instantaneously did away with the cultus of the saints would seem to present. That's how it can be explained in the one page on the Reformation in an elementary school history textbook, but obviously there is a lot more to say about the topic within the formal study of religion. Meanwhile, not all customs and traditions are very old, as you mention. Just because Lucy lived in the 3rd and 4th century and her veneration dates to that time, doesn't mean the Swedish Lucia celebrations are also ancient. We know that they spread from Sweden to the rest of Scandinavia very recently, and took on a religious tone, in some cases. It may be that Lucia, as we know it, dates only to the 19th century, much like Valentine's Day. It is a fun, and beautiful celebration, and it is also celebrated this way in Lutheran churches in America - but not in a particularly religious way, just part of Scandinavian-American folk life. And Saint Lucy herself was an amazing model of Christian virtue, service and generosity. Thank you for bringing attention to her life and story.
Recently it was also 'the feast of the Imaculate Conception' here in Italy which is not celebrated in all Catholic countries.
...and in extension, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Hispanic world.
I think the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is globally celebrated among Catholic Christians, even if they don't have processions everywhere
Hello from Montreal. When I was a boy, there was a particular cartoon that played on tv, in the U.S. (Tom and Jerry cartoon) where the character sings the Santa Lucia song. Hearing the song now, it brought back that memory to me.
An ex of mine was of Swedish origin and grew up in Minnesota, and her family did the whole St Lucia Day thing, crown of candles and all.
I just wanna add that 2:49 boys are usually stjärngossar, and more recently gingerbread men and such. But Stjärngossar is the main. Atleast when i did lucia!
Not many gingerbread I was the only gingerbread man att my school for several years
Fun fact! The small town in Michigan that I grew up in actually celebrates Lucia, I believe some Swedish exchange students brought it over in the 50's and we've celebrated it ever sense.
ua-cam.com/video/sTLUae8IBtw/v-deo.html
I adore strange little tidbits of culture like this, absurdities hidden in plain sight. Speaking of Italian islands, have you considered dedicating a video to the religion in Malta? I've just been, and the language alone is fascinating!
P.S. I still have a logo concept I could share with you, if you're interested!
I think you hit the nail on the head when talking about light in the darkness: I, vividly, remember the Lucia trains I saw as a child: completely dark room(s) and hallways, everyone is quiet and it is dark outside as well. Almost suffocating, honestly. Then you hear faint singing. As the singing grows louder, you also see the light of the living candles coming closer, and then there's this procession of young girls, clad in white and fire, and it brings light into the darkness: warmth to the cold.
It can be a very profound experience.
I suspect that our modern celebration is an amalgamation of several, older things: the saint herself, the pagan tradtions, but also the ever-present desire for light and warmth in dark December, the primal wish for fire if you will, and maybe also the wish to celebrate something a little less overtly religious than Christmas.
I think the origins of rituals and traditions are very interesting to learn about and that's why I'm here, but as someone who studied anthropology and just as a person who loves partaking in my own family and society's traditions, I recognize that it doesn't even matter because meanings change and the real function of these rituals is to bring people together and give us a sense of unity and purpose. It feels good to have traditions and benefits us socially and spiritually, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof.
Edit: Loved your contextualization at the end. I'll definitely be checking out more of both of your channels!
What I have learned and confirmed by searches. Is that since ancient times, December 13 was a feast day linked to the midwinter solstice, according to the old calendar. Even though we changed the calendar, the celebration continued on December 13. People got really drunk and this bothered many. To change this, someone figured out that you can celebrate something else on that day. Since it was Lucia's day, it became natural to celebrate Lucia. It started at a university (Lund I think) and spread over time by the students to their home towns. It was never very big but lived for many decades. However, it became big in the 1950s when a newspaper decided that the readers would be allowed to vote for this year's Lucia. After that, the tradition grew very quickly and became something everyone celebrated.
The characters that you dress up as have increased over the years, Santa/the elf and the gingerbread man are relatively recent additions.
I thought the newspaper thing was from the 1920:s.
When my mum was a child in the 50:s and 60:s, people dressed up as whatever they liked for Lucia. There were always Lucia and the maidens (tärnor), but also for example a baker or a chimney sweeper. Crossdressing was common.
@@kajsan760 You're probably right. It's been a long time since I learned that.
In my country (Croatia) we also consider St. Lucy's day as a religious holiday due to Italian influence.
Imagine before electricity and gas, how dark it would be. Candles would be expensive before stearin, spermaceti and paraffin wax appeared in the 19th century. It was not something people would use a lot of. So in Scandinavia, they would be in a lot of darkness.
I've talked with and old who remembered back to when she was young, she would sit with the ironcast oven open, so she could read her homeworks.
In such dark times, the joy of a light festival must have made quite the impact on people. Something hard to imagine now when we chase away the darkness with electricity, we don't really get to experience long term darkness anymore.
Could there be a connection between Lucia being a prominent festival in Scandinavia and Sicily, and the Norman conquests?
Lucia is celebrated in other countries also for example Poland , Croatia some places in Hungary.
She was one of the early Christians before the Church split into East and West so its a bit strange that she became a Catholic Saint.
@@aramisone7198What do you mean? The Catholic Church & the non-Catholic Eastern churches recognize all saints that existed before their splits in common. Like St. George
I am gearing up to celebrate Lucia tomorrow. I am from Norway.
I think you left out Finland - as I recall it, they celebrate Lucia as well!
Another Saint we still celebrate is Saint Martin, with a feast the evening before Saint Martins Day - which also just happens to be in the end of the harvest season and overlapping with All Hallows’ Eve, and the Pagan celebrations there undoubtedly where part of life before Christianity….
Findland was longly colonized by Sweden, ... Swedes brought christianity to finland ... I think he knows all that ..
Lucia in Finland is a bit odd, since ... well, the traditional understanding I was taught, as a Swedish-speaking Finn in the 90s, was that this was something only Swedish-speaking people in Finland do. This is my experience later in life as well - most Finnish-speaking acquaintances have no idea what it is. This unfamiliarity reached a very interesting extreme in the early 2000s, when Folkhälsan r.f. (a non-profit association that works with a variety of things - teaching kids to swim, charity, retirement homes, but also organized until recently at least the biggest Lucia event in Finland every year) patented Lucia and the accompanying celebrations. Apparently, the patent handler had never heard of it before, and so figured it was a new thing and granted their patent.
Looking in this comment section, though, it seems people all over the country are celebrating it nowadays, so maybe it's spread into Finnish Finland as well since I was a kid?
@@markusmiekk-oja3717
Thank you for your response.
I had a Karate Instructor who was from Finland, and judging by how awful her Swedish was when we went on camps and at tournaments in Sweden, I highly doubt she was from the Swedish speaking part - as I recall it she were from somewhere in the Northernmost Eastern part, but I don't know how many speak Swedish or have Swedish ancestry there.
But this was back in the 90's and she had been Lucia several times as a kid, I remember we joked a lot about it, because back when I was a kid in Denmark it was very often the pretty tall blonde girl who ended up being the Lucia, but my instructor were definitely not a tall blonde, (but she was still pretty, very smart, and really really funny).
She's probably in her late 60's today, so it must have been used in at least some parts of Finland, aside from the Swedish speaking parts?
But it might have been in a few smaller communities - and it might very well have been due to some level of Swedish or Norwegian influence I guess...
But anyway, thank you so much for taking your time to respond - the part about taking a patent really made me laugh...
I needed that!
@@markusmiekk-oja3717 I studied and lived in primarily Finnish speaking cities and towns although there were large Swedish-speaking minorities around in many of those cities/towns and we celebrated St. Lucia in primary schools. But that was at least 20+ years ago. I believe in some schools we even chose our own Lucias and I remember at least one occasion where we were in church and Lucia came there.
I attended a Lutheran church while growing up in the US. We would celebrate "Santa Lucia" every December. It was, by that point, just "one of the things we do". The local chapter had been started by a small group that included people with both Swedish and German roots.
2 of 3 of my daughters were lucia in the procession in folke skol.
🇩🇰
Hopefully the one who wasn’t Lucia didn’t get too sad about it. Greetings from Brazil 🇧🇷
@@pedrod854 no. Each year one girl was randomly chosen. The procession was through the school hallways. All pupils had costumes and sang the St lucia song. I can remember the soliminity of the moment. I would leave work just to watch.
obrigado
Looks like in Finland it is more common in the Swedish-speaking areas (well not really a surprise). Helsinki and Turku seem to have a celebration/event; in Tampere I have never heard of it. The main main page I found about it is from the Swedish Finn Historical Society.
😃 Lovely and very interesting! Have a merry winter season, Filip! 😃
I’ve hear on Swedish radio P1 once that “Lusse” is an old Swedish word for midvinterblot that was what was celebrated on the 13th in the old calendar. My guess is that people continue celebrating it.
The saint is also important in Portugal and in Brazil (Santa Luzia).
St Lucia day is apparently also widely celebrated in Slavic countries, where she is relied upon to protect people from witches and malicious supernatural beings
Maybe it's the fact that when i was a child it was her and not santa/baby jesus that brought me gifts but it's definitely my favourite saint.
My church was Lutheran and remember a celebration like this in my church they was also a a lot of cinnamon buns served and I remember the song refrain
I'm from the Netherlands and the waldorf elementary school i went to celebrated many different feast days, including st. Lucy's day. A central element in our celebration was a big spiral maze laid out from spruce tree branches. All the kids would spend the day making a candle holder from clay and later in the day everyone would walk the maze and place their lit candle. At the end a kid chosen to be saint lucy would lead a procession through the maze to light the big candle in the middle, with burning candles in her hair. I'm so happy magic was prioritised over fire safety 😅 it was truly beautiful.
Thank you for another fascinating video. I’ve always considered Saint Lucy as the Christianised version of the Roman Goddess Juno Lucina, whose name clearly links the associations with light, childbirth etc. Were any of the Norse Goddesses similarly linked with these themes and celebrated around this time of year, prior to being Christianised as this saint?
The claim that 13th December was the shortest day of the year under the Julian calendar for a very short while. The winter solstice moved backwards by roughly a day per century until Pope Gregory reset the calendar to as it was in the 4th century. So the argument that S. Lucia was celebrated for this reason assumes that the holiday was introduced around the 12th century.
As many comments have pointed out, Finland also celebrates Lucia a little bit (I think some of the pictures you showed were actually from Finland). There is an organisation that actually chooses Finland's "official Lucia" and they have a televised event from the Helsinki Cathedral. It's actually interesting because Lucia has traditionally been celebrated by the Swedish speaking minority but it has gotten more popular over the years with the whole population. I'm from Turku, which is a bilingual city so I've always known what Lucia was. In my high school (fully Finnish speaking) the choir performed a small Lucia procession where they sung in Finnish and Swedish. I wasn't aware that there are still many Finnish speaking Finns that didn't know about this tradition until more recently, because to me it has always had (a small) place in the Christmas season. Fascinating how traditions develop.
You are mistaken. Those aren’t the only people that celebrate St. Lucia’s feast day. She is also celebrated by Orthodox Christians. That means dozens of countries.
I live in Illinois and went to an Evangelical college; it didn't allow dancing, except at Junior Senior and the Santa Lucia dance. The dance was loved by most people, except the ones who hated it because they knew it was Catholic.
She was one of the early Christians before the Church split into East and West.
Älskar dina produktioner så!! Musiken med. Brukar inte se så att kommentera men nu passar jag på. TACK 🙏🎖️
Dude this is such a perfect video, i just had no clue why / what st.lucia was before this
Where I come from in Brazil we would put candles on the windows on Saint Lucy day, there we call her Santa Luzia, but also the name Lúcia/Lúcio is a very common name in Brazil, but not commonly associated with the Saint.
St Lucy is also widely celebrated in some parts of the philippines. The saint acquired the title of a miracle worker among Filipinos. The phrase "pwera sakit" or afuera sakit (meaning go away, sickness) is a trademark of her feast here. Hymns used for her feast here also uses the melody of the italian folk song
Santa Lucia night has spread to Denmark too, where we will have annual Santa Lucia walks through town and schools. It's only the girls though.
Very late to the party, and perhaps someone else has already mentioned this in an older comment, but a detail I find significant, is that - at least in Denmark - the Lucia procession takes place before dawn, almost literally bringing the light of the day in the winter darkness. The opening lines of the Lucia song also goes something like this:
"Now the light is carried forward
Proudly on your crown"
Also just one last point to add, which I feel is significant symbollically: The girl at the head of the procession wearing the candle-lit crown is called the Lucia-bride.
And one last thing: We don't have Lucia-buns in Denmark 🙁 The Swedes definitely got the better thing going on with that addition to the day 😄
I remember how I didn't want to dress up as a tärna during St. Lucia, but instead decided "I want to be a tree!", and so I came to school in a tree costume with Christmas decorations on me, lol
Absolutely based. Thats awesome!
Why did you spell it "Solstace" instead of "Solstice" at 5:25? Is this an archaic spelling?
I think you’re confusing a childrens play with a professional lucia choir.
You’ll only see a gingerbread man / santa in a childrens lucia celebration (but that’s usually only for the really small children.)
In a professional setting, or basically any choir with teens or older it will only be the white dresses. Even the men wear those (but sometimes maybe just a shirt with black pants as well.)
Many people in Scandinavia might ignore that the Santa Lucia song is actually a Napolitan song about the Santa Lucia island of Naples (The kingdom of Sicily extended to Naples).
Reminds me also regarding the witch and her followers, of the earlier Holda and the Wild Hunt. Holda and her southern cousin Perchta in the traditions are also both connected to a witch figure and a benevolent figure. Connected to winter and the winter solstice, next to rituals of holding candles, lamps or other sources of light. The northern version, linked to Scandinavia according to Marija Gimbutas is Frigg and Frejya. Looking at the similarities in ritual that survives in other regions in Germany, and then also at 6:00 the reference made to Lussi and her followers. Make me suspect that there could be a connection here with this. But that is then more of a speculation. What we do know about Holda is that there is a witch figure also connected to her, that normally roams around and steals cattle, or otherwise brings harm to the community. Where her other side as Holda that is benevolent is connected to the carrying of light. We can see this also with Perchta. Another cousin of Holda. Having similar rituals connected to light, and a duality of character. Benevolent and potentially dangerous in a witch form. I happen to be somewhat of an expert on Holda and Wotan, and other linked Proto-Indo-European traditions.
In the more Southern variants of this pagan tradition there is first the light ritual, followed by the perchtenlaufen ritual, connected to fertility and the shooing away of the spirits that can cause harm.
I happen to also know people personally who practice the rituals linked to Perchta, and this aligns well with what you said about Lucia and Lussi.
There is also a Biblical Huldah, styled as a prophetess, who ran a ‘school for young prophetesses’ at Jerusalem. The entrance thereof, although now filled in with bricks, is still called the Huldah Gate.
My Swedish great grandmother was also named Hulda, and she called herself, tongue in cheek, a ‘seeress in Israel’ when something she foresaw came to pass.
My own association to her name includes Andersen’s tale “Mother Elderberry”- a magical gestalt for the ability to retrieve evidence of the past and predict the future.
The figure of the Huldre in Nordic mythology, a beautiful woman, who, with a gaping hole in her hindquarters serving as a portal to the underworld, knows and keeps the secrets of the dead.
And finally, the synchronicity of actually viewing Gimbutas’s papers archived at the Pacifica Institute in California.
Thank you for sharing your observations.
Hulda Stone
@@RebeccaStone-e8q Hey. Thank you so much for sharing this! That means to much to me. I am so happy about this. Yes. I know about the Hulder, and I knew about the connection to them also stealing the cattle, but also being linked to fertility, and luck in hunting. Though the connection to the underworld is so cool! I knew with Hulda this link, and also various other similar figures as mentioned by Gimbutas. As I read her work. Next to that of Dumezil on Juno, who through Feronia (archaic Juno) is also linked to the underworld, next to lupercalia (Juno Lucina).
@@TheMysticTable thank you!
As a Norwegian 10th grader, I do enjoy these celebrations. Our school celebrates this every single December and the 7th graders are the one who preform. The main Lucia cosplayer, from my experience from 7th grade, is usually the girl who is known to be the most "beautiful" or "popular". And yes, a lot of people were offended when they weren't chosen to play Lucia🤣
Had to do a double take when he said "Scandinavia is a protestant country" at 10:10 - not because the scandinavian countries are mostly atheistic these days, but because as a norwegian, I was surprised to see this swede thinks we still are one country.
Pretty sure he intended to say "region" or something "Sweden" instead of "Scandinavia", but yeah, still pretty embarrassing mistake. Besides, we would much rather have Finland back instead /s
Great celebration at Old Swede Church in Philly, with is Episcopal.
Love St Lucia! We orthodox Christians venerate and love her as well!
Lucia happens to be my birthday, so I have of course a bit of a special interest in the topic. I was hoping there might be some more about St Stephan and how his song in the celebration adds a horse connection that apparently didn't exist in biblical canon and may have some pre christian roots. In different versions of his song "Staffan var en stalledräng", he has something of a protector role. He goes out to kill a wolf, and then the song ends with everybody having their christmas needs of porridge, pig and candles met. His connection to Christmas is also based on legend rather than canon, as he originally was active something like 35 AD, but legend has him tell king Herod that the savior has been born.
The story of sint lucia has some similarities with sint Nicolas. He is also very popular in a, what used to be, Protestant country.
She is celebrated in not only in Scandinavia in fact in all of the Nordic countries that means Finland and Iceland too, not just the Scandinavian ones (Sweden, Norway, Denmark) and ofc she is celebrated in Italy and Greece too for Sicily had been Grek for such a long time then and had just been conquered by the Romans but the family of St.Lucia had Greek origin but her mother married a Roman man but otherwise the family were Greek.
In Northern Italy, traditionally christmas gifts where actually given on Saint Lucia day, but now we are loosing this tradition. The standard present for Saint Lucia day (so the christmas present) where Mandarins or Oranges, and they weren't brought by Santa, but by Il Bambin Gesù (The little Jesus)
Lucia is one of my daughter's middle names. She is named after Lucia Gonzales Parsons, otherwise known as the anarchist organizer Lucy Parsons.
In the area where I live in Norway, we still celebrate Lossi on the 12th of december. Children dresses in costumes and goes knocking on doors to get sweets. Similar to Halloween in a way. But I believe this tradition is kind of older than the Lucia tradition, and was more common throughout Scandinavia before. The Dalane region in Southwest Norway, is the only place I've heard of with such a celebration.
St. Lucia pray for me 🙏🏻
I love learning brother tyvm
Thank you
The danish tradition is quite similar to what you explain in Sweden. But in Denmark the Girl/Woman who walk in front with the crown with lights in is called the Lucia bride. And while walking the progression they sing a specific song. See below. The progressions are generally formed in schools, scouts, sports clubs etc. It is normal for the progression to happen at the school, but after that they will also go to old age homes and hospitals to walk the progression. After walking the progression the choir will sing other Christmas songs.
Nu bæres lyset frem
stolt på din krone
rundt om i hus og hjem
sangen skal tone
nu på Lucia-dag
hilser vort vennelag
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia
Her ved vor ønskefest
sangen skal klinge
gaver til hver en gæst
glad vil du bringe
skænk os af lykkens væld
lige til livets kvæld
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia
In the elementary school's luciatåg I was a santa in a CCCP shirt. It was the only red shirt sold in town.
It is very important to knows this; and it is always forgotten or misunderstod: The only reason the name Lucia is in the title of this tradition is because a man went down to italy and heard a song that was sung there.
Since long time ago a tradition called Lussebrud was happening with its cortege of women and men who came to visit houses in the morning the 13th of December. Back then, Lussebrud had NOTHING to do with Lucia in Italy. That is a later change. It was all a coincidence.
1. First we have Lucia. From internet: Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy) is celebrated in Italy on 13 December. She is patron saint of her home town, Syracuse.
2. Then they named a harbour/city part to Lucia in Naples, Italy.
3. Then a song came to be about a fisherman who always longed back to his harbour; "St Lucia".
4. Then a man from sweden came to Italy, heard and like the song - and took it home and they sang in with a different lyrics.
5. Stockholms Daily Post created a competition 1927 called "Swedens Lucia". They did not use the term Lussebrud for some reason.
Therefor many people believe that Lucia is the origin of this tradition - and it is not.
Just a few facts there.
We where told that Lucia was once a young girl who was hounded by a man who wanted to marry her for her wonderful beautiful eyes, and when she was on her way to a convent (I think) any ways she was on the road, the man stoped her and she had had enough so she picked her eyes out and gave them to him, and that’s why she wears a red rope around her waist symbolizing the blood from her eyes
Interesting. I did not know that Lucia was not a thing outside of Nordic countries, at least Finland besides Sweden. I always thought it was normal christian or at least Lutheran thing around the world.