The Winter Witch Lussi and Sicily’s Saint Lucia

A look at why, in the heart of Scandinavian Lutheranism, a Catholic Saint's Day is celebrated as a major holiday in Sweden. Was it made for Scandinavia?

From The European Conservative

By Carlos Perona Calvete

A look at the origins of Luciatåg: Swedish folklore and the 4th-century martyrdom of St. Lucia of Syracuse

Two horses in the stable enjoy the extra portion of feed that their owner has left for them. He will not be back until December 14th, nor will any member of his family or any neighbor. Indeed, they will not see a son of Adam today, nor be seen by one, for it is the longest night of the year, when all are required to leave their livestock well provisioned, take refuge indoors, and do no work, on pain of a frightful visitation. 

But the horses in their shed will have other company. They will turn to one another and discuss the curious appearance of the fairies who, on this night, become visible, and they will converse with them, exchanging news of the human realm, so far as they have gleaned during the preceding year, for on December 13th, animals enjoy the ability to understand fairy-speech and are endowed with fluency in that strange tongue. 

On this night, creatures from the spirit world roam near human habitation, and anyone caught dallying about outside might just get a frightful glimpse of them. It is the year’s Sabbath, when none are allowed to work in the Scandinavian hinterlands, where this, the Lussinatten, is observed. And at the head of the supernatural, nocturnal revelry, is the queen of darkest winter, the year’s nadir, Lussi. 

In truth, she is a benevolent entity whose work is to prepare the portion of the earth to which she is native for the Christmas celebration and, therefore, for the new year. One day of darkness, during which no daughter of Eve treads her walkways and no son of Adam roams his fields, a refreshment for nature to yearn again for her stewards and for the denizens of fairy fiefs to enchant the streetlights, park benches, or memorial bricks whose magic has faded over the preceding twelve months and whose upkeep falls to pixies and gnomes, for the pious among the spirit world have an ancient alliance with humanity.

Oh, but it has not always been so…

There have been times of enmity in which the demonically aligned among the race of fairies had prevailed and tyrannized the human family with superstition and idolatry.

In those times, Lussi was known as a terrifying monstress who would snatch up whosoever violated the edict not to work on the longest night of the year, and especially misbehaving children, whom she would spirit away and throw into a scalding cauldron up on a dark, unknown escarpment that no parent would be able to reach in time. 

Such are the lies of perverted folklore. 

But who is Lussi, why did she come to be known as a harpy-like mistress, and how was men’s knowledge of her finally set right?

It was by way of a foreign saint, as is often the case, for the holy branches in other lands may be brought over and grafted to a sickly tree, causing its sap to again course healthy and true.

St. Lucia was a lady of Syracuse, a native of the holy island of Sicily. At that time, Christians in Sicily, together with the faithful throughout the Roman Empire, were subject to oppressive decrees, for Emperor Diocletian was heading up a campaign of religious persecution.

Lucia was the heiress of a noble family but grew up precariously on account of her father’s death. Even at a young age, she found religion, and knowing of the horrors that afflicted her brothers and sisters, she would take what supplies she could carry down into the Syracusan catacombs where Christians hid. In order to avail herself of as much food and as many sheets as might be of use to save lives, she attached candles to her head, making a luminous crown of sorts. Thereby, she kept both her hands free for carrying provisions as she descended down into the cold, pitch-black tunnels where the dead were stored and the spiritually alive were sheltered.

During these times of trial, her mother traversed her own cold darkness, for she fell ill, and having little protection, for she was without a husband, endeavored as best she could to arrange a suitable marriage and secure a dowry sizeable enough to afford some stability and perhaps medical treatment, before the illness took her. Thus Lucia was engaged to a wealthy man, but one much averse to the name of the Nazarene Messiah, who, in fact, celebrated the repression of those who preached the Gospel. 

Our saintly woman went to pray one day, much afflicted by her mother’s sickness but firm in her devotion, and was granted a vision of St. Agatha, who told her that, by God’s will, her mother would be healed through faith.

Such was the confidence with which Lucia now informed her mother of the glad tidings for her health that she was moved to cancel the wedding.

The pagan suitor, however, would not be denied, and he reported the young woman to the local governor for being a member of the despised new religion, whereupon she was arrested and threatened with being forced into a brothel if she did not go ahead with the wedding. But Lucia would not be yoked to a cruel idolator, whose approach to marriage matched the wantonness of the gods he worshiped. 

Concerning these gods, we may reflect on the demon who corrupted the image of Lussi in Scandinavia, that evil feminine figure whose archetype is the Whore of Babylon, and wonder whether it was not this Satanic spirit that inspired the jilted man and imperial governor to try and defile Lucia in this manner.

In any case, though the governor sent men to apprehend our pious woman, she was somehow endowed with the strength to resist them and not be moved. If she could not be taken to a brothel and broken in spirit, however, the persecutors would at least break her  body, so they stacked wood around her and set it on fire. Even as the tongues of flame licked her skin, the saint did not cease from preaching the word of God, so that a guardsman was finally ordered to drive his spear through her throat. To no avail! Again, some supernatural boon worked through her, for according to her hagiography, she went on speaking all the same. What was she seeing to cause such a fixity of purpose and to receive such an impossible favor? What were her eyes witnessing, where all others saw only the empty sky above? But just as one guardsman had tried to steal her voice, another now tried to take her sight. Enraged by the lofty and holy gaze of one so devout, a gaze filled with love for God, made odious to those in whom demons have made their home, the second guard unsheathed his dagger, braved the flames momentarily, and gouged out both her eyes. 

Again, it was for naught. St. Lucia is sometimes depicted holding forth both eyes, the cutting out of which could not prevent her from the beatific vision, so the tale of her death tells us, anymore than stabbing her through the throat could stop her from proclaiming the Good News. 

The year of her martyrdom was AD 310. She was 27.

Now, returning to the Scandinavian winter, the feast day of St. Lucia happened to coincide with the longest night in those northern climes, and her name matched that of the indigenous Lussi, even as it is also assonant with the Latin for ‘light,’ Lux, indicating the beginning of the lengthening of days. And was the catacomb of her Sicilian city, cold and dark, not a perfect image for the depth of winter, into which light was about to be brought and whose dead were about to be rescued? 

St. Lucia’s hands and skirts were also full of gifts to save the lives of those who dwelt in the catacombs—just as the Christmas season, which happens to come near St. Lucia’s day and melds with it in a single seasonal cheer, is a time for gift giving. 

Finally, Lussi is a descendent of Odin (albeit this is a largely unknown element of her story), and he is known to have given an eye in return for the mead of wisdom, just as Lucia lost both eyes for her faith but did not thereby lose a pixel of her sight, even as being stabbed did not prevent her from a jolt of her Gospel preaching. 

Did all this not indicate that St. Lucia’s story was meant for Scandinavia? That the northern peninsula was supposed to be its home, together with the southern peninsula of Italy?

Surely it did, and so the fairy queen of winter, Lussi, was happy to have the new faith and the tale of the Sicilian saint banish the demonic elements that had occluded her figure from the people, rectifying her and putting her day back on the calendar as a time of warmth, kindness, and piety.