Sankta Lucia: A Song History
"Sankta Lucia" is the song Swedes sing for the Lucia celebration on 13 December, and it borrows its tune from the Italian "Santa Lucia," with Swedish words that were written in the 1920s.[1] The day itself belongs to Lucia of Syracuse, a Christian woman of Sicily who, according to the saint legend, was killed on 13 December 304, and whose name derives from the Latin word for light; in Sweden that date stayed on the Catholic calendar of saints until the sixteenth century.[1] The link with light also made her, in later tradition, a patron of sight.[2]
Cima da Conegliano, Three Saints: Roch, Anthony Abbot, and Lucy, oil on canvas, transferred from wood, ca. 1513. Saint Lucy, whose feast day the Swedish song celebrates; the painting has no connection to the song.
The timing carried older meaning: under the Julian calendar the year's longest night fell between 12 and 13 December, until Sweden switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1753.[3] In peasant society that night was thought to bring dangers and supernatural beings, and in nineteenth-century western Sweden it was a carnival-like local festivity, the "Lusse Long Night," when people in costume went round gathering food and drink.[1] The oldest known visit from a white-robed Lucia, though, was recorded in 1764 at Horns, an upper-class estate in western Sweden, where she appeared with angel wings and candlesticks.[1] Artur Hazelius brought the custom to Skansen in Stockholm in the 1890s as an example of country tradition, and a Lucia contest in the late 1920s, which one source says was run by a Stockholm newspaper, made it popular with the wider public, though sources differ on whether that contest was held in 1927 or 1928.[1][3]
The procession familiar today, with a Lucia crowned with candles leading attendants and star boys, became common in the 1950s.[1] In many homes one daughter, traditionally the eldest, puts on a white gown and brings coffee with saffron buns and ginger biscuits to the family.[4] For families with small children the day goes on at preschools and schools, and workplaces and universities may hold celebrations of their own.[3] Mark Gilston includes "Sankta Lucia," along with "Hey Tomtegubbar" and "Nu Ar Det Jul Igen," in Christmas With Dulcimers, a 56-page book of Christmas music in mountain dulcimer tablature that he publishes himself.[5]
Sources
- Nordiska museet: "Lucia".
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Saint Lucy".
- Linköping University: "Lucia celebrations – a unique tradition with ancient roots".
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: "St. Lucia's Day".
- Mark Gilston: "Christmas With Dulcimers".
- Image: Cima da Conegliano, Three Saints: Roch, Anthony Abbot, and Lucy, oil on canvas, transferred from wood, ca. 1513. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.