So there we were, 6pm, waiting outside St Johannes church with the ice cold wind threating frostbite or severe exposure. Basically freezing ourselves all for waiting to see what this little celebration, Lucia was all about.
I had come down to the rather magnificent looking church near triangeln as an “outing” for my SFI group. Our teacher had decided that it is just as good to experience Sweden and its traditions as it is to sit inside a classroom. A point I did agree on but whilst standing outside the church with the wind threatening to strip any vestiges of warmth from our shivering bodies I did question the fact as to why we were here waiting at 6 if the doors were not to be opened for another 45 minutes.
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"That is the first time I have ever seen boobage in a church. Apart from some renaissance painting of a baby Jesus sucking on the pale breasts of Mary of course."
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As time dragged chillingly onwards the reason for the teachers apparent over eagerness became clear, the resultant queue stretched to the shops across the courtyard and around the futuristic looking train entrance. Hundreds of people seemed a little eager to get in and get their slice of this Lucia thing. The doors sure enough opened at 6.45 by a young looking priest with a rather large ear piercing and we jostled our way in to occupy the front pews of a pretty fine looking church. It looked all church like, as one would expect. The obligatory crosses and paintings of Jesus and other people who must have done something good at some point in their lives adorned the walls and, comfortably for my atheist soul, my skin did not begin to blister and burn as I feared it may in this place of religion. The Swedish church is pretty relaxed after all.
It took some time for the priest to usher everyone in and bums had to be squeezed up pretty close on the pews, we were all god’s children after all so a bit of close buttock action didn’t hurt any of us. Now I didn’t really know too much about this whole Lucia affair that was about to go down, I knew it involved candles but that was pretty much it. Aware of my ignorance in this a helpful Swede filled me in on the reasons behind these goings on. Apparently In another story, Saint Lucy was working to help Christians hiding in the catacombs during the terror under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and in order to bring with her as many supplies as possible, she needed to have both hands free. She solved this problem by attaching candles to a wreath on her head. Then cementing her as a martyr and saint she was tortured and killed after getting grassed up to the authorities by some jealous dude who wanted to take her virginity. Then for some bizarre reason as she was about to be killed she pulled out her own eyes and gave them to her lover with the virgin Mary then apparently giving her some even more beautiful eyes as she died. Hmm all a bit crazy sounding to me but interesting none the less.
Now was I to expect girls pulling their own eyes out on this occasion? Or was it to be a drunken schnapps fuelled affair as most other Swedish celebrations seemed to be? As it was neither was to be the case and beautiful singing began to emanate from the back of the church as the procession of a dozen young Swedish women began, one at the front with the candles on her head followed by the others carrying a candle, singing sweetly and lightly followed by the more dulcet tones of the male singers. Was all rather special and nice, could even say it was quite moving, they certainly had been practicing for some time but all I could think of at this moment was the arguably best werewolf movie of all time. “The American Werewolf in London.” A film that scarred me for many years when I secretly watched it aged 9. Well at the beginning when the two Americans are walking across the moors they begin to sing “Santa Lucia” just before a werewolf attacks them from the darkness and rips them both to bloody shreds. Had the church got the song from the movie I wondered.
Well it was hard to get that connection out of my head once it was in there but I still enjoyed the songs that came one after the other, at one point it even verged upon a rather lively little number but my joke about them being about to break out into a Abba number, to the lady next to me, was met with an elbow to my ribs.
It was overall quite a nice little experience, although irreligious myself it was good to see this Christian celebration which had been adopted by the Swedish church and did make me feel all Christmassy once I forgot about pulling out eyes and werewolves. The singing over, we all got ready to leave and slowly moved towards the doors whence we had came. The singers had all moved to a balcony above the doors and I thought they were about to sing to us all as we left, but no, it was not singing but was stripping. In full view of us all, both the young women and men stripped off, changing from their ceremonial clothes into normal wear. That is the first time I have ever seen boobage in a church. Apart from some renaissance painting of a baby Jesus sucking on the pale breasts of Mary of course. No that was special. That was the Swedish church. I love Sweden more and more each day I spend here.
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Mark Anthony Low