Throughout Scandinavia and especially in Sweden, 13 December – right at the heart of advent – means the celebration of Lucia. One of the most relished dates in the Swedish calendar, marking the start of the Christmas festivities, the celebration brings together old pagan and Christian traditions.
Under the Julian calendar, which was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC and thereafter followed across Europe, the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year – occurred around 13 December. In Sweden the date became the occasion for night-long revelry. According to folklore, evil forces were especially prevalent in the darkness of the long night, so it was customary to stay awake, eating and drinking until the rise of the sun the following morning. Swedes believed that fervent celebrations on 13 December would ensure for them a light and bright and otherwise prosperous winter.
By the 1400s, Swedes were choosing 13 December as the day to slaughter the Christmas pig. The date was especially welcomed by farmers, for whom it meant the end of the year’s most onerous work, and it remained popular in the centuries to come as celebrations spread slowly from the west of Sweden to encompass the full breadth of the country. Children increasingly joined in with the gaiety by visiting from house to house singing songs.
The Gregorian calendar was established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, but it wasn’t until 1753 that the calendar was adopted in Sweden. This pushed the winter solstice back around eight days, to its current date between 21 and 22 December. However by this point the practise of celebrating on 13 December was already entrenched, and anyway the date now had another justification, as the Feast of Saint Lucia.
Lucia of Syracuse, otherwise known as Saint Lucy, was a Christian martyr who died during the Diocletianic Persecution: the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. According to the stories told around her life, she was a devout woman who distributed her riches among the poor, and having consecrated her virginity to God, refused to marry a pagan nobleman. Angered by her disobedience and her squandering of wealth, the nobleman ordered that she be defiled in a brothel, then had her set on fire, and finally she died by the sword, but not before she had been administered the Christian sacraments. Other versions have her struck by a spear instead of a sword, and subject to the ghastly act of eye gouging.
Lucia died in Syracuse in the year 304. Her story reached Sweden gradually, from Sicily via England and Germany. As ‘Lucia’ shares its root with the Latin word ‘lux’, which means light, and as the Feast of Saint Lucia coincided with the winter solstice, 13 December was emphatically the Swedish festival of light. Lucia remained one of the few saints whose feast day was still celebrated in Protestant countries after the Reformation.
The extent of the link between the modern Swedish Lucia celebration and the story of Lucia of Syracuse, and the precise spread of festivities from their origins in the west of Sweden, are both topics which continue to stir debate. But by the early decades of the twentieth century, the celebration as it exists today was beginning to take hold.
The traditional Neapolitan song ‘Santa Lucia’, which had been transcribed by Teodoro Cottrau in 1849, was brought to Sweden a few years later by Gunnar Wennerberg. Girls were already marking the festivity around the home by wearing candle-lit wreaths upon their heads, and white gowns with red sashes. But public processions only became commonplace after the Stockholmstidningen crowned a Lucia in 1927. The celebration began to spread to parts of Finland, Norway, and Denmark.
Today a Lucia is elected in every school, as well as in many towns and workplaces. Often still going to the tallest blonde girl present, she will be flanked on either side and behind by other girls in white, holding candles, and sometimes arranged according to height. Boys can also take part in the procession, dressed in white with cone-shaped, star-covered hats, as Santa’s elves, or as gingerbread men.
And amid the processions and songs, no Lucia is complete without mulled wine, gingerbread, and lussekatter: saffron buns baked in the shape of the letter ‘S,’ with raisins in the middle of each swirl. Swedes bake these by the dozen, often starting as early as late November. A seasonal treat then, which tells the stomach it’s about time for Christmas.
* * *
Lussekatter Ingredients
For the buns (makes around 30):
- 300g butter
- 12 dl milk
- 2g saffron
- 2 dl sugar
- 100g fresh yeast
- 2 eggs
- pinch of salt
- 25-30 dl plain flour
For decorating:
- raisins
- 2 eggs
* * *
Lussekatter Method
- Melt the butter in a saucepan or another vessel of your choice, add the milk, and allow the mixture to cool before transferring to a bowl or similar accoutrement.
- Grind in a mortar and pestle, or otherwise mix together, the saffron with a smidge of sugar. Add this and the yeast to the butter and milk mixture.
- Now add the eggs, salt, the rest of the sugar, and gradually the flour, working and kneading the mixture into a smooth dough.
- Allow the dough to rise under a towel orĀ plastic wrap for about 45 minutes.
- Cut, roll, and shape the dough into approximately 30 buns, each in the shape of the letter ‘S’, placing the buns in turn on parchment paper.
- Let the shaped buns rise, for another approximately thirty minutes.
- While waiting on the buns, get your oven nice and hot, in the vicinity of 200C.
- Before baking, brush the buns with lightly beaten egg and press a raisin into each swirl: two raisins to each bun. Carefully now: don’t squash them!
- Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.
- Allow the buns to cool slightly before gorging. Enjoy with a tall glass of milk or mulled wine in a mug or beaker, all the while signing ‘Santa Lucia’ or other festive carols.
