A Brief History of St Lucy Buns

On December 13, the Western church honors the feast day of St. Lucy.

The day is most commonly celebrated in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries. I became familiar with it when I received a Kirsten American Girl doll for Christmas as a child. She arrived clothed in a white gown with a crown of candles and red bows tied in her hair. Later that year, a young girl from Sweden new to the United States joined my kindergarten class. She showed me her own gown and candle crown, assuring me that the practice continues on back in her home country. 12 years later, I finally got to mark St. Lucy's Feast Day in proper style. I lived in an international ministry community, where my Swedish and Dutch friends dressed up and led the rest of the crew in celebration.

St. Lucy, or Santa Lucia as she is known in Scandinavia, was a fourth century martyr who is said to have worn a crown of candles to navigate the catacombs to bring food to Christians.

It is said that the Roman authorities were threatened by Lucy's refusal to renounce her faith (before you read on, I'll warn you that the next paragraph is a bit graphic).

First, she was to be kidnapped and forced into prostitution...but when they came to take her, her body could not be moved. Then, she was to be burned...but her body resisted flames! Finally, she was stabbed in the throat to silence her voice for God...and yet, she managed to live.

At long last, the authorities allowed the brutalized St. Lucy to receive her last rites and only then did she succumb to her human limitations and passed on peacefully into glory.

Lucy's faithfulness is honored to this day. My doll, Kirsten's, outfit mirrored the outfits that young girls will wear: a white gown to mark Lucy's purity (she resisted marriage her entire life), a red sash to mark her martyrdom, and a crown of candles like the one she is said to have worn in the catacombs.

The girls feed their families, just as Lucy did the Christians in hiding, bringing them coffee and lussekatter—saffron and cardamom buns. 

Prior to the invention of the Gregorian calendar, Scandinavian countries celebrated the winter solstice on December 13. Like many Christian holidays, it's likely St. Lucy's day integrated folk traditions that lined up with the solstice celebration.

Lussekatter, which translates to “Lucy’s cats” are also known in Sweden as lussebullar. In Denmark they go by the name luciabr.d and in Finland, lucia-pullat. A variety of folk traditions exist to explain where the reference to Lucy’s cats came from. Some say the shape looks like a curled-up cat or the twists of a cat’s tail, or that the raisins look like a cat’s eyes. Some claim the bun was originally called d.velskatter, which translates to “devil’s cat,” associated with a pagan winter feast in the Netherlands. 

Saint Lucy’s feast day, then, is a day to focus on the light that overcomes the darkness—both Lucy’s candles in the darkness of the catacombs and the light of Christ coming into the world.

Get my recipe for Lussekatter in my book, Bake & Pray: Liturgies and Recipes for Baking Bread as a Spiritual Practice! It's available here at Edible Theology, or anywhere else that books are sold.