#who sings about elvish creatures in norway and eat fish for christmas dinner in czech

[bogkeep]

also, from the wikipedia page about saint lucy's day:

Lussinatta, the Lussi Night, was marked in Sweden 13 December. Then Lussi, a female being with evil traits, like a female demon or witch, was said to ride through the air with her followers, called Lussiferda. This itself might be an echo of the myth of the Wild Hunt, called Oskoreia in Scandinavia, found across Northern, Western and Central Europe.

Between Lussi Night and Yule, trolls and evil spirits, in some accounts also the spirits of the dead, were thought to be active outside. It was believed to be particularly dangerous to be out during Lussi Night. According to tradition, children who had done mischief had to take special care, since Lussi could come down through the chimney and take them away, and certain tasks of work in the preparation for Yule had to be finished, or else the Lussi would come to punish the household. The tradition of Lussevaka – to stay awake through the Lussinatt to guard oneself and the household against evil, has found a modern form through throwing parties until daybreak. Another company of spirits was said to come riding through the night around Yule itself, journeying through the air, over land and water.

There is little evidence that the legend itself derives from the folklore of northern Europe, but the similarities in the names ("Lussi" and "Lucia"), and the date of her festival, 13 December, suggest that two separate traditions may have been brought together in the modern-day celebrations in Scandinavia.

i am fully aware that the "well christmas is actually borrowing from all of these PAGAN traditions" argument is very much the edgelord atheist reply, usually responding to the moral panic about "oh no!!! people are forgetting what christmas is REALLy about!!!!" and i really do Not want to posit that christmas is a secular holiday, because it's very much not, and i think we'd all be better off if we stopped acting like it is. but also. i very much get the feeling that a lot of christmas/midwinter traditions in scandinavia and probably many other places in europe (gestures at krampus) are... proxies, i think, for pre-christian traditions and celebrations. compromises. if you listen to scandinavian christmas songs, you'll find that a LOT of them are about barns and mice and nisser/tomter - and it's hard to explain the concept of a Nisse to non-scandinavians. i suppose they look like gnomes but they are a kind of elf but if you imagine gnomes or santa's elves you're on the wrong track entirely. they're just, one of the Underground People, kind of like trolls - oh, wait. everyone go watch hilda on netflix. that's the vibes. (i also think NRK re-released jul i blåfjell on their website for everyone to access, but it's only available in norwegian </3) the reason i'm even thinking about this is because i've been listening to too many podcasts and video essays about moral panics surrounding the war on christmas. because of course. there's something deeply fascinating to me in the contrast between cultural celebrations - from the "remember christmas is about BABY JESUS!!!" crowd to the scandinavia solstice vibes of 'the sun is gone and there's trolls out there - oh yeah no this is totally about jesus btw'. im so fascinated by how some people want christmas to be a secular standard holiday celebrated by all AND also remember how super mega religious it is, but you can't have both, can you? like either way you've got corporations and consumerism eating away at it from both ends so like, make up your mind. is it sacred or is it cheap? ultimately holidays boil down to whatever traditions you keep and that's gonna be a different thing for everyone. so

it DOES seem very strange to celebrate a random saint from syracuse in the culturally lutheran protestant but also majorly atheist scandinavia that nobody other than italy celebrates, i know, but it makes a lot of sense when you consider how it coincided with the winter solstice in the julian calendar and how mayybeeee it's easier to convert people if they can keep their traditions and stuff