Satanism and Sicilian Saints

When December 13:th rolls around, Swedes go into Lucia mode. What happens is that women in nightgowns (plus some sidekicks like ginger-bread men and little santas) come singing, and one particular chick has candles in her hair and is "Lucia".




This Bizzare custom is very strange, and it is actually so strange that even us Swedes don't really know where the heck we came up with it exactly.

Actually one big thing almost every year on TV is some historian trying to untangle the mess that is our "Lucia" festivity, which all come back to maybe it being originally a pagan or even satanistic ritual originally, since there are lots of word with the prefix Lusse- connected to the festivity ("Lussebulle", a special type of bun, e.t.c.), which sounds bit more "Lucifer" than "Lucia" plus is said to preceed the Christening of Sweden.

The real why's of how a particular Saint became important to Sweden is something you'd have to Google for coz frankly, I don't have a clue.

No Lucia festivity is complete without the song "Sankta Lucia". However this song choice has two particular quirks:

First, the actual original italian song is actually about the village of Lucia, and has nothing at all to do with the Swedish lyrics in any way, shape or form (which talks about a chick "bearing light", coming 11 days before Christmas saying, "yo, folks, X-mas is coming")

The second is that nobody thinks of this as a religious song per so. Now, while the title means "Saint Lucia", the word "Sankta" for "Sainted" is so baroque and ancient (the normal Swedish word would be "Helgon") that most people don't even understand it's meaning, and actually think it's the chicks name. If you ask any Swedish child what "Sankta" means, they'll say "It's Lucias first name".

For us, Lucia is about a "chick bearing light" that comes 11 days before X-mas, and... passes out ginger snaps. And coffee.

An amusing detail is that they play out the Lucia festivity early for the Nobel Prize winners (the Prize is always given Dec 10:th) and it is always funny to see their reaction, noted was literature Prize winnder Dario Fo's comment "I've died and gone to heaven". He probably never had a bunch of Swedish blondes in nightgown coming into his bedroom in the morning with coffee before.

To us, it happens every December 13:th.

I'll write a little more about this bizzarro event later.

/Z