The Ritual of St. Lucia Then and Now, with Stina Cowen
Anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas said in his book, Rituals: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living, that rituals often have no physical result when performed. Instead, rituals are symbolic, and perform a very essential function in the roles of community building, cooperation, and trust.
In this Nordic on Tap episode, we delve into the Saint Lucia ritual, which coincides with the old winter solstice date (Dec 13th) on the Julian calendar. What happens during the St. Lucia ritual? Who participates?
In this Nordic on Tap episode, we delve into the Saint Lucia ritual, which coincides with the old winter solstice date (Dec 13th) on the Julian calendar. What happens during the St. Lucia ritual? Who participates?
In this Nordic on Tap episode, we delve into the Saint Lucia ritual, which coincides with the old winter solstice date (Dec 13th) on the Julian calendar. What happens during the St. Lucia ritual? Who participates?
Traditionally in Sweden, Lucia was depicted as a blue-eyed, blonde girl with fair skin. However, in modern times, as the population becomes more diverse, the St. Lucia ritual has evolved to reflect a broader range of backgrounds, promoting greater inclusivity. This highlights how traditions can evolve to reflect societal changes while still maintaining their cultural significance.
Join me as we try to make sense of this with Stina Cowan, the Cultural Director at the Swedish Club Northwest, in Seattle, Washington USA. We also listen to 3 traditional and lovely Lucia Day songs associated with the ritual.
Links
Stina Cowan is the Cultural Director at Swedish Club Northwest and has held roles related to education and culture programming at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, WA, USA. We were honored to have her on the Nordic on Tap Podcast.
The Exeter (UK) Lucia Singers perform St. Lucia songs annually in the town of Exeter, England (UK). They travel around town in full Lucia dress and sing in various venues. According to the Exeter Daily News, announcing one of their performances in a church, “Ex-Swedes and friends bring music and light to the darkness of a winter evening with a traditional candle-lit Swedish St Lucia procession. Entry is free, as are the saffron buns!”. Their Facebook page is here. The motive force behind this lovely tradition in Exeter is due to Rosa Rebeka, a Swedish folk musician, teacher, and director who lives in Devon, England.
In the Lucia ritual Lucia, with a crown of candles, leads a procession of “girls and boys” to the front of the venue (church, school, etc) where they sing 10-15 traditional songs. They process to the Santa Lucia song. CC-A license, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, UK
Here’s the Exeter Lucia group performing a set of songs (29 minutes of acapella music) in St. Michaels Church on Mount Dinham in Exeter in December, 2021. The church acoustics are tremendous and the audience (if there is one during the filming) is silent so you can hear every word and note.
Here the Lucia group sings 9 traditional songs sung as part of the St. Lucia ritual in 2011. Each recording is a separate video with the name of the song.
Stina Cowan mentioned that Swedish Television (SVT) broadcasts the annual Lucia Celebration from Stockholm, which is professional and quite spectacular. Other music schools, such as singers from the Adolf Fredrik’s Music School in Farsta (just south of Stockholm) performing a professionally produced St. Lucia concert repertoire as well..
A traditional food on Lucia Day is lussekatter, or Lucy cats, aka saffron buns. Making the buns is often a family affair, as is performing the Lucia ritual in Swedish homes. Lussekatter are light yellow because of the saffron spice, in commemorating the return of brighter, longer days. There are mixed opinions why they are called “cats” – some say the spiral ends are reminiscent of cat tails. Others argue the raisens which are placed in the buns represent cat eyes. If the spirals represent tails, then one bun contains two connected cat tails.
You can make lussekatter yourself as I tried myself, using the easy lussekatter recipe from Kristi Bissel of the True North Kitchen Blog. The buns are leavened (risen) with yeast. Before I decided to try to make them, I bought a dozen at a Scandinavian bakery (but you can buy them online too). I can’t quite describe the taste. Some say it tastes “earthy”, which makes you wonder why eating dirt would be so desirable. Still, I thought it intriguing.
Lussekatter or saffron buns have two curled ends that are reminicient of cat tails. How the black raisen is supposed to represent cat “eyes” is less clear (to me). Note the bright golden-yellow color from the saffron. Photo by KJ Voglius on Flickr, CC-NonC-SA license.
Saffron is the golden color released from the reddish stigma of the Crocus sativus flower when placed in water. Since each flower contains only 3 stigmas, and they are harvested by hand, it makes this spice very expensive. Fortunately, you need only 1/4 teaspoon in most recipes. Photo by Driss Ait Omar Photography, Creative Commons-SA license.
The most expensive part of the recipe is the saffron, but you only need 0.5 grams (about 1/4 tsp), which was $5-$15 USD in 2024 at a grocery store. Saffron comes as a clump of “threads”, which are actually the middle (stigmas) of the pistils from the crocus flower, Crocus sativus. Can you imagine having the job of clipping the “threads” out of hundreds of crocus flowers?
We featured Kristi and her Scandinavian cooking blog in a 2021 podcast called Nordic Cooking with Kristi Bissell and the True North Blog. Her blog often has videos for each step of a recipe. Check it out! I love her krumkake, kransekake, and pepperkake recipes.
The tradition of Sankta Lucia, it’s Italian origins, how lussekatter got their name, and the lyrics of the St. Lucia song in Swedish and English, is nicely explained by blogger Linda Leinen.
Other St. Lucia programs that have videos or streaming include those at the Scandinavian Cultural Center (Pacific Lutheran University) in Tacoma, WA, USA; Gustavus Adolphus College (live streaming on Dec. 13th) in St. Peter, MN, USA. You can also hear the Gustavus Adolphus Lucia singers at the end of our podcast, The Many Faces of the Tomte. Nordic Northwest in Portland, WA, USA also celebrates Lucia Day.
The UW (student) Swedish Club through the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA, USA) participates in the Lucia ceremony at Swedish Club Northwest, as Stina mentioned in the podcast. A special shout-out for their programs, as both Stina and I (Eric) earned degrees from the top-notch professors in this department. They offer programs in the Nordic languages and history – one of the few remaining institutions that offer Nordic language instruction. They also teach the Baltic languages like Estonian, Lithuanian, and Latvian.
Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living, by anthropologist Demetris Xygalatas, was published in 2022, which means it’s available from used bookstores now, your favorite independent bookstore, or from that big online bookstore behemoth. Xygalatas is a popular interview guest in many videos online, but I like his interview on the podcast called Emotions 2.0: When I Feel Like You Feel from Hidden Brain, with host Shankar Vedantum. By the way, the Hidden Brain podcast “explores the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior and questions that lie at the heart of our complex and changing world”, and its scientific perspective and storytelling style makes this one of my favorite weekly podcasts.
