I missed it unfortunately, but yesterday was the feast day of St. Lucy, or St. Lucia. Because her feast day falls within Advent, she has been pulled into the world of Christmas lore.
St. Lucy is a Christian virgin and martyr of Syracuse said to have lived from 283 to 304 and to have died under Diocletian. She refused to burn incense to the emperor and was condemned to a brothel. When soldiers came to take her, they found they could not move her, even when they tried to drag her away with oxen. They then attempted to burn her alive, and she miraculously survived, but died from a sword thrust.
She is a patron saint of eye diseases, and images of her holding eyes on a plate have been part of her iconography for a while, but the legend that her eyes were gouged out during her martyrdom apparently appeared only in the fifteenth century.
According to legend, she delivered food to the Christians hiding in the catacombs. To light her way, she wore a wreath on her head with candles affixed to it, and this is why her feast day is celebrated with children crowned in wreaths and candles, often with one particular girl chosen as the honorary St. Lucy of the year. This is particularly popular in Scandinavia, and according to Britannica, the celebration of St. Lucy marks the beginning of the Christmas season in Sweden.
Traditionally, the girl playing Lucy wears a white robe, a red sash, and a wreath of evergreen Lingonberry branches. Pepparkakor, or gingersnap biscuits, are also associated with her holiday.
I am not at present clear on how old this tradition is; a few glances around indicate that the Advent wreath with the four candles is originally a Lutheran tradition—though most Lucy wreaths I’ve seen have five or seven. I will have to dig deeper before I can say whether the St. Lucy wreath predates the Christmas wreath or vice versa.
Particularly fascinating about St. Lucy is that this distinctive appearance of her processions—a girl in a white robe with a wreath of candles on her head—has (apparently?) become associated with the Christkind, or Christ child, in some places, especially Germanic countries.
The Christkind, or Christ child, was intended by Protestants as a replacement for St. Nicholas—but instead of turning the focus to Jesus as was probably intended, the Christkind ironically became a separate figure, usually played by a girl or woman with curly hair, sometimes with a tall crown of gold but often crowned with a wreath and candles.
And that’s why you don’t mess with Christmas characters: When you try to get rid of them, you just end up creating more.
I’m still uncertain about what originated where and when, but at least according to Chris Marchand, it was the Protestant image of the Christkind that informed the image of St. Lucy. Given the late—and Protestant—origin of the the Advent wreath, this seems plausible, though I previously assumed it was the other way around.
Basically, if I understand aright, the unorthodox depiction of the the baby Jesus as a candle-headed girl got folded into the image of the young woman saint who was already a part of the Advent season. Incidentally, Marchand mentions that St. Lucia has also taken on the role of a gift-giver, sometimes giving presents exclusively to girls.
At the moment, I confess I’m unsure what to do with either St. Lucia or Christkindl in the world if Son of Hel, the Christmas-themed novel of Krampus as his motley crew of St. Nicholas’s companions tasked with saving Christmas, but I feel an obligation to work these characters in somehow.