Saint Lucy / Santa Lucia /Sankta Lucia presents another excellent example of syncretism. A dual saint to both Catholics and Nordic Protestants and also to some Eastern Orthodox communities, St. Lucia (traditional dates 283-304 A.D.) was a Greek Sicilian martyr killed during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian. Some versions of her death have her stabbed through the throat; others have her eyes gouged out (she is, among other things, Patron Saint of the Blind).
So how on Earth did Santa Lucia become a Swedish / Nordic saint?
In Viking days, the Norsemen traveled, raided, and created outposts all over Europe and, to the West, in Greenland and even in what is now Canada. They sailed into the Mediterranean and landed in Sicily, among other places, where they mingled with natives and absorbed local traditions, including that of Santa Lucia, who in Swedish became Sankta Lucia. The Swedes adopted Catholicism along the way, and remained Catholic until the Protestant Reformation and the infiltration of Lutheran beliefs. Sankta Lucia's feast day survived, rather miraculously, this second conversion.
Under the Julian calendar, Lucy's feast day was commemorated during the winter solstice (December 21-22), syncretized wherever celebrated with non-Christian belief systems. As with Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, "everybody be happy." Much later, during the Gregorian calendar reforms, St. Lucy's feast day was moved from the solstice to December 13th, where it has remained on the calendar for the past three to four hundred years.
In addition to being Patron Saint of the Blind, Saint Lucy of Sicily is also a patron saint for writers, salesmen, and stained glass workers.
Birthdays today include:
Nostradamus, or Michel de Nostredame (1503-1566), French prophet.
Shirley Jackson (ca. 1916-1965), "The Lottery" (1948).
Today's Rune: Fertility.
Ciao!
6 comments:
Wow, that picture of her holding the plate of eyes is really creepy, even if she is patron saint of the blind. Great post though. Very informative. Where do you get the pictures?
Saints fascinate me. I also love reading about how religions evolved. Comparative religions. As a fan of Joseph Campbell, I look at religions more for their mythic views than for anything else.
Peace
Thanks for the comments! Much appreciated. Hopefully I'll be able to comment on yours once I "upgrade."
Sheila -- prayer cards. There are tons of them and other stuff at the Catholic Supply Store on Twelve Mile. It's fun to poke around there and people watch, too.
Stewart -- I love that, too, looking at religions/the sacred from all sorts of angles, including Campbell, Eliade, Jung, Freud, all of them -- the psychology of religion, the common ground, the kaleidoscope of global development, the rifts, the schisms, the heresies, the heterodoxies and orthodoxies, the magic, the anthropology, the archetypes, the dream aspects, all of it. Endlessly fascinating the deeper we go into it.
Cheers' at the Ides of December :->
E'
How ironic that you should choose "fertility" in posting on such a subject.
My comments are few and far inbetween but you are not forgotten. Your words mean more to me than I can express. Thank you, Monsieur Erik.
Mlle Cheri.
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