History

What does this legend have to to with a Swedish light celebration? One may well ask. The word lucia is derived from lux in Latin, which means light. Perhaps that is all the reasoning behind it. In Sweden, the Lucia Celebration has old roots. The night of Lucia used to be the longest night of the year (before 1753 when the Gregorian calendar was introduced). It was believed that during this night supernatural forces were very strong. Animals were thought to be able to talk and water could be transformed into wine. If you had fasted and kept vigil, and walked quietly through the village at midnight, you could see and hear about things that were to happen during the following year. The night was filled with dangers. Lussi was the name of a witch thought to be in the service of the devil. There are many stories about how she was out pillaging during the longest, darkest night of the year, the lusse night. The name Lussi is derived from lus , Swedish for louse, the animal of the devil, and Lucifer, is another name for the devil. So Lucia and lusse have totally different origins, but have melted together into the modern Lucia.

There were many tasks that had to be done on or before Lucia:
 If threshing was done before Lucia, you were allowed to drink of lussebrännvinet , (so of course everybody made sure they had finished the threshing! :) ).
 The person who first got out of bed was called "Loppan" the whole day whereas the person to get up last was called "Lusen" . They are both words for louse, but the word lus , as I said before, was the origin for another name for the devil, Lucifer. People said that Lucifer's mother put lice in the bed of the person sleeping in the longest.
 Some of the best forage or some of the food for Christmas was to be given to the animals.
 During the night of Lucia, you shouldn't do anything which involved a spinning or rotating movement, such as spinning, grinding, or baking. And you mustn't be up late as there was so much evil out that you wanted to avoid everything that could disturb it or draw it's attention to yourself.

Evolving

So Lucia didn't start out as a festival of lights at all. In the 19th century, in the southwest parts of Sweden, richer families introduced one of the major components of the modern Lucia. They socialized a lot with the German higher society, and the rich German families had exchanged Saint Nicholaus (who was a little scary to the children) with a white robed girl with candles in her hair portraying Jesus as a child, to be the one to bring the Christmas presents. The Swedish society families copied them. For gift bringing purposes, however, the white robed child was soon replaced with the Christmas goat and later with Santa Claus in Sweden, but she lived on as Lucia. A mix of Italian tradition, and German and Swedish customs. Rather a strange mix if you think about it!