Saint Lucy´s Day

We observe Saint Lucy´s Day on the 13th of December. Saint Lucy was born around 283-304 A.D. and lived during the times of the Great Persecution in Syracuse on the island of Sicily. Several legends talk about her life. According to one of them, she swore to herself in childhood to never get married. She refused her intended’s proposal and, therefore, he denounced her with the charge of being a Christian. As a result, Lucy died a martyr of her faith.

The name Lucy originates from the Latin expression lux, which means light. Before the Gregorian Calendar, this was the shortest day of the year and at the same time the first day of the Winter Solstice. It was said that “Saint Lucy´s Day shortens the day”. Therefore, this day is connected with numerous superstitions, predictions and work prohibitions. In Hungarian folk belief, the character of Lucy has a twofold structure: on one hand it relates to Saint Lucy from the well-known legend and, on the other hand, it is also connected with a witch-like, maleficent creature. The latter is a ghostly phenomenon who, on this particular day, can cause harm to people and animals.

On Saint Lucy´s Day, people had to defend themselves against the malevolence of witches, and in order to identify them, the so-called “lucaszéke” (Luca being the Hungarian version of Lucy) or Luca´s stool was made. The stool had to be made in the period between Saint Lucy´s Day and Christmas Day and this is how the proverb “it is made as slow as Lucy´s stool” originated. Lucy´s stool was made from an exact number of wooden pieces that were of a particular type. Nails were not allowed to be used at all and the pegs had to be made of beech wood. The person who made the stool had to bring it to the Christmas Midnight Mass and by standing on the stool, he could identify the witches. Immediately after this, Lucy´s stool had to be burnt.

Predictions concerning marriages were also connected to this particular day. Men´s names were written on bits of paper and incorporated into dumplings. They believed that the first dumpling to float to the top of the boiling water held the name of the girl´s future husband.

One of the many weather-related predictions held that grains of wheat were sown near a stove and if they sprouted by Christmas, then a rich harvest was to be expected in the forthcoming year. Another weather-prediction was the so-called ´onion calendar´, according to which, 12 layers were peeled from an onion and each layer represented a month of the year. The layers were then salted and if one of them released moisture, then that month of the year would probably be very rainy. 

However, most of the Saint Lucy´s Day´s predictions are connected to hens and their fertility. Versions of these predictions differ from region to region but one of them is the so-called “kotyolás” when children used to go from door to door in order to wish fertility to homeowners by singing magical fertility songs. Neither sewing nor weaving was allowed anywhere because people believed that by doing these activities, the hen´s rear might be sewn shut and, therefore, it would not be able to lay eggs anymore. Doing laundry or baking bread were also forbidden. People were not allowed to lend anything either because the superstition held that, by so doing, luck would abandon their homes.

Sources:

  • Tátrai Zsuzsanna: Jeles napok, ünnepi szokások. Planétás Kiadó, Budapest, 1997.
  • Halász Albert: Jeles napok, népi ünnepek a Muravidéken. Studio Artis Kiadó. Lendva, 1999.