Nowadays, it’s most often children who celebrate Lucia in kindergarten or at school. This has probably contributed to the Swedish tradition having a great impact. She points out that the white clothes and the lit candles stand in stark contrast to what is the darkest time of the year in Norway, and especially in the north. There probably aren’t that many people anymore in northern Norway who are familiar with the details related to Lussi,” she says. CC PDM) Lucia has taken overīut Willumsen acknowledges that Lussi has given way to Lucia, also in northern Norway, where Lussi’s place in the local folklore was once widespread. Åsgårdsreia, typically translated as “the Wild Hunt” was a mob of ghosts and other supernatural creatures that flew through the air in wild pursuit at Christmas time. Lussi's entourage shares many similarities with Åsgårdsreia, which has inspired many artists. In other words, this Norwegian folklore survived for a long time. Hansaften, the veil between the two worlds is eased a little, so that ghosts and beings from the other side could pass freely, “she says. “On days such as the winter solstice, Christmas, Easter and St. It was thought that a passage was opened to the underworld, and it was dangerous for people to be outside,” says Willumsen.Īnd in Norwegian folklore, it is common for supernatural beings and restless dead souls to appear on important days. “In the Julian calendar, this was the night of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. So why did Lussi actually come on the night of December 13th? They called this spooky entourage "gangferd" or “gongferd” (a dialect word that roughly translates as the walking dead). She herself is familiar with the stories about Lussi, and the dead people who rose up from the cemetery, from her own upbringing in Vesterålen in the 1950s and 1960s. If this work didn’t look like it would be done, the household could have gotten some form of punishment,” Willumsen says. “She checked on work that was being done in homes, especially anything associated with circular motion, such as spinning, baking and milling, to make sure it was on track before Christmas. These ghosts were restless dead who arose from their graves in the cemetery,” says Liv Helene Willumsen, a professor emeritus of history at UiT Arctic University of Norway and has studied witch trials in Finnmark and Scotland.Īlong with her fearsome entourage, Lussi wandered around on the night of December 13, which was also called Lussi langnatt (Lussi long night), to check to see if people had finished their Christmas preparations. “Lussi was a creature who walked around with a cadre of ghosts. Unlike Saint Lucia, this female figure was not a symbol of goodness and light. Then there’s Lussi from Norwegian folklore. “This German tradition may have been a precursor to the Lucia tradition we find in Sweden,” Baklid says. The girl was meant to symbolize the baby Jesus and brought with her a boy named Hans Trapp, who was a kind of devil-like figure. (Illustration: Unknown artist / Otto von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, 1863, CC PDM) The celebration involved a woman wearing a white dress, preferably with a wreath on her head with candles, and she would serve food and drink to others in the family.Īn illustration showing Christkind and her scary helper, Hans Trapp, coming for a Christmas visit. There is evidence of the celebration in Sweden all the way back to the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Served food to the familyīut long before any public beauty pageants, the tradition started at people's homes. That’s an element that has fallen away,” Baklid says. “Previously, there was a competition to be the finest Lucia, a kind of beauty pageant. The front page of this issue also explains that Gothenburg's Lucia was visiting Oslo that day.
In 1945, Norwegian students also crowned their first Lucia, according to the weekly magazine Aktuell. “That created the modern Lucia and shifted the celebration from the private sphere into the public space,” says Baklid, who has studied Norwegian holiday traditions. This was the first time a Swedish newspaper featured a big story about the tradition. He thinks the Lucia tradition began to spread to Norway after 1927.
(Screenshot: Aktuell, 1945 / Nasjonalbiblioteket) Norway's first Lucia on the cover of the weekly magazine Aktuell.
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