Saint Lucy's Day in Hungary

One of the most interesting high days of the Advent period is Saint Lucy's Day, celebrated on the 13th of December, on a date on which according to the unreformed Julian calendar was the longest night of the year. Although that has changed later on, the day is still dedicated to Saint Lucy and beside being a Christian holiday celebrated by most Churches, it is also linked to numerous folk traditions all over the world, and some special ones unique to Hungary.
Saint Lucy, also known as Saint Lucia, is a venerated martyr from the 3rd century: a young Sycilian girl during the Diocletian persecution, she offered her virginity to God and had her dowry distributed to the poor; when her mother arranged her marriage with a pagan man and she refused to wed him, the angry groom denounced her as a Christian to the governor. Guards were sent, first to take her to be defiled in a brothel, then to burn her according to the death sentence – but miraculously they were unable to move her, even with the help of fifty oxen; as a final torture her eyes were gouged out, but she was able to finish her prayer even when her throat was cut. By the sixth century her story was widespread, and because she was the bride of Jesus, after becoming a saint she was considered, among other things the patron and protector of those awaiting marriage.

According to Hungarian folk tales St. Lucy (in Hungarian: Luca) was far from being a saint, she was actually some sort of a witch, and numerous traditions, customs and superstitions were linked to her.
For example people believed that on her day ghosts were roaming around free, so they put garlic in their windows to protect themselves and hid their brooms so witches couldn’t fly away. Peasants began to observe the weather on this day and they did so for twelve days, creating a calendar at the end ("lucakalendárium"); according to popular belief the twelve days until Christmas were a copy of the months of the following year, so if the weather was ugly on one of them they axpected it to be so in the equivalent month as well.
In some parts of the country young men and little boys dressed up in white bed-sheets with smut on their faces, tried to scare everyone and recited funny rhymes and blessings in exchange for small presents or some money.
Girls and women were not allowed to work on this day and young ladies were busy foretelling the future in many different ways. They knocked on the roof of the pigpen to scare the animal – if the pig didn't grunt it meant that they would be engaged soon, if it did, the event would only take place after a number of years (depending on how many times the pig grunted). Another custom was to write the names of twelve young men on pieces of paper, then place them into a sort of fortune cookies or throw them into fire – the one remaining last, would contain the name of the future groom. Also women had seeded wheat on this day and if sprouts appeared until Christmas, that was a sign that crops would be rich in the following year – in many villages this custom is still alive today: the green of the wheat stem symbolizes hope and the arrival of Jesus, so it's placed under the Christmas tree.
The best known Hungarian tradition of this day was the building of Lucy's pentagram-shaped chair ("lucaszék") from nine different types of wood; its maker was only allowed to do one procedure per day and had to finish working exactly on Christmas Eve – then the chair was taken to the church on the high mass, and whoever stepped up on it was able to see the local witches.

A great Saint Lucy's Day festival will be held this weekend in Budapest as well, organized by the Museum of Ethnography, located near the Parliament buliding. The event called Music under the Stars will take place from Friday the 11th of November until Sunday the 13th and will include a Christmas Fair, many creative programs for kids and cultural shows for adults, with concerts and performances featuring a Swedish choir, holiday carolers, and lots of popular Hungarian singers and bands from different music styles from folk to rock.