This is the day devoted
to Saint Lucy, a Sicilian martyr during the Diocletian persecutions. The story
is that, having become a devout Christian, she refused to marry and compromise
her virginity. The spurned suitor denounced her; she was meant to have been
sent to a brothel, but miraculously all the king’s oxen and all the king’s men
couldn’t move her, so they built a pyre around her to burn her to death.
I find it rather
interesting that she wouldn’t stop talking, not even while the fire was burning
and not even when a Roman soldier speared her in the throat. Not until she was
given the Christian sacrament did she die. And thus shut up.
The name Lucy comes from
“lux”, meaning light, and her day is celebrated in Northern countries with
young girls waking their families wearing lighted crowns (used to be candles; I’m
guessing that Health and Safety doesn’t allow that sort of thing any more, so
it’ll be LED jobbers) on this morning.
We in the US have our
own Lucy tradition, so let’s have a couple of pieces from that great classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas, both
featuring the Vince Guaraldi Trio. First up, “Linus and Lucy”:
And a somewhat more
Christmassy song, “Christmas Time Is Here”:
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