Santa Lucia — Two versions of the sotry of the December 13th celebration

Translated from André Kirsebom of the Norwegian Spiritualist Foundation

The Christian:

Saint Lucia, often called Sankta Lucia, (283–304)

Her name is derived from lux, lucis “Light” and she is the protector of the blind. The anniversary of her death in which a feast is held is December 13. According to legend, her faith led to her sick mother being healed. In this sense, we can perceive her as a healer.

The young rich Lucia had become a Christian at a time when the church had not yet gained a foothold in Sicily. As a Christian, she wanted to dedicate her virginity to God, and refused to marry a non-Christian. Having decided this, she distributed her saved dowry among the poor.

Her intended husband accused her of being a Christian to the governor of Syracuse in Sicily. Based on her faith and her disobedience to her husband and the governor, she was persecuted. She was captured and the guards reportedly gouged out her eyes with a fork, killing her. The Catholic Church then made her a martyr and saint.

The Spiritual:

The Norse version is largely based on our ancient mythology. We are approaching Christmas (Christmas/winter solstice), and it is on this evening that Christmas begins. According to the Roman calendar, the night between December 12 and 13 is “the longest of the year”. This is not cosmologically correct, but after the forced Christianization of Scandinavia and the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, this pagan celebration was moved to the night of December 13.

Originally the celebration was around the 21st of December, or more specifically the night before the sun set. If we look at this tradition, it is also far more logical that it was originally celebrated just before the winter solstice. It is completely connected to ancestor worship and the start of Christmas. Our Norse tradition was almost identical to the one we have today. This is for the simple reason that this tradition is also Norse and spiritual in origin and content.

To understand the content of this celebration, we need to understand what elves are. Elves are the spirits of our ancestors. They are light. They are our “intuition”. Figuratively, they were often depicted with wings, just like the much later copied Christian angels. The dance of the light elves is a picture of the northern lights themselves.

Our ancestors had a different and more logical view of body and soul than the later introduced monotheistic and Christian one. A human being was divided into five main components by our ancestors.

Lík (like: the physical body, schuggi: shadow/silhouette),

Vörðr (fylgja: protector/guardian angel, hamingja: accumulated honor and happiness),

Hamr (hamr: the astral body, form, minni: memory, memory),

Hugr (hugr: thought, desire, sál: soul),

Önd (õnd: spirit, ódr: mind).

Your spirit (Odin) was thus considered the sum of your experiences, accumulated in the eternal cycle of the clan. Accumulated in you as reincarnated. Our dead ancestors can be perceived as light elves, and they come to us and are with us at Christmas time (in the mind, they are no longer physical). A light elf is thus the free spirits of our dead ancestors, waiting to be reborn in the lineage.

To invoke the light, the spirits of our dead ancestors (the light elves), and the light itself — the sun, we dressed in bright robes and carried candles at the winter solstice celebration.

The goddess Frøya — the “queen of the elves” who was originally celebrated, was replaced by the church with the saint Lucia. The chosen one who led the white-clad and luminous procession, in honor of our ancestors, represented Frøya. A procession in honor of the sun and reincarnation.

Frøya is Odin’s (spirit) wife. She is the feminine side of Odin (the spirit). She is symbolically a spiritual midwife, who is celebrated on the night our ancestors called “mother’s night”. As spiritualists, we believe in a creative god who is in everything and everyone. For us, Odin, Frøya and the other old gods in the Norse sagas are spiritual guides who are there to help us.

The garland of lights was carried by the symbolic Frøya — Lucia who walked at the front of our ancestors’ processions. The wreath was either mistletoe or yew. Yew is most often used as a decoration on graves, and is the Christmas wreath above all, with its red berries to this day. For this night, ‘long night cakes’ were baked. These are equivalent to today’s ‘lussekatter’, Swedish saffron buns. This is a pastry shaped like the sun’s eternal circuit, in a figure of eight — representing the sun wheel and eternal cycle.

The Greeks Pytheas and Prokopios already tell from antiquity (over 300 years before our era) about the long night celebration in Scandinavia. In what remains of these ancient writings, we read that fires were lit on mountain tops and ridges. This was done to signal that sunrise had been seen, far away. The women brought out torches and candles, white dresses, with red belts around the waist. This symbolises rebirth and reincarnation.

On the last night before the sun turned, everything in nature was born again. It was a wonderful light festival. A celebration of ancestors, seed, the light, the sun and reincarnation. It was filled with beautiful processions, singing, joy, food and drink. That the processions also consisted of children, was natural. It was the children who were to find their honour and happiness and call upon their ancestors (the elves). The children were the future.

In the millennium it was punishable by death to mark this pagan festival in Scandinavia, and it was strictly forbidden. The church later plagiarised this pagan tradition after the forced Christianization, since it did not allow itself to be broken.

The tradition was accepted again in the Renaissance. The celebration was dedicated to the “hand-picked” Catholic saint Lucia who died on 13 December. The day was then moved from December 21 to December 13. The celebration was then based on the Christian Lucia who was martyred in the fourth century, at least 600 years after the Greeks’ accounts of the celebration in Scandinavia.

We have had the Long Night celebration for many, many thousands of years, long before Jesus and Lucia. On our Primstav, the day is marked with a bonfire or a candle.