For us her name symbolises light ("lys") during these short, dark winter days (sunrises about 9am and decends about 4pm) which is why you a lot of places will see young girls/ladies all dressed in white gowns holding a lit candle in their hands singing a praise for Saint Lucia while walking slowly. The girl in front of the cortege is wearing a green wreath with 4-5 lights on her head depicting Saint Lucia.
In Denmark the tradition dates back to WWII: inspired by the Swedish tradition, the Danish people started this as a silent protest against the Germans, who occupied our country for little more than 5 years.
Whooops how did my picture end up here ;o)
At my old school, it was tradition for all the girls in the 5th grade to be part of a Saint Lucia cortege walking through the school ending up at a common room - when we reached the common room the whole school started singing Christmas carrols. Most Danish schools have their traditions on these day - all with Saint lucia corteges.
Apologies for the poor photo quality of the Saint Lucia cortege - pictures taken mid 80s by someone not very interested in photography - and recently scanned in order to get them in "digital" version.
2 comments:
Love this Legs! Thanks for saving me the question - a cutie for sure ;)
I like this tradition...beautiful. I know the scanned in photo thing...They did not have the quality back then but yours look great anyway.
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