Santa Lucia is the patron saint of Syracuse, Sicilia, where she was born. On the 13th of December, her feast day is celebrated. It is celebrated in many countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Bosnia, Bavaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Spain, and of course, Italy. She is a popular saint particularly with children throughout Italy, particularly Trentino, East Lombardy, parts of Veneto such as Verona, parts of Emilia-Romagna such as Piacenza, Parma, and Reggio Emilia. Tradition tells that she arrives with her donkey and an escort, Castaldo, to bring gifts to good children and coal to bad children, on the night between 12th and 13th December. As children in the western world leave out milk and cookies for Santa Claus, Italian children leave coffee for Lucia, a carrot for the donkey, and a glass of wine for Castaldo. It is forbidden to watch Santa Lucia delivering the gifts, and if one was to do so, legend has it that she would throw ashes in your eyes, blinding you temporarily. With a name derived from Lux, Lucis meaning 'light', she became the patron saint of the blind.
It is not exactly clear as to what the story of Santa Lucia is, but many believe that she was a Sicilian saint who was martyred in Syracus, Sicilia, around 310AD. The Guilte Legend, a Middle Age compendium of saints' biographies says she went to the shrine of Saint Agatha, patron saint of Catania, to find help for her ailing mother, Eutychia, when an angel appeared to her in a dream. Because of this, Lucia became a devout Christian and refused to compromise her virginity in marriage to a non-Christian. Her fiance denounced her to the Roman authorities, who then threatened to give her to a brothel if she did not denounce Christianity. However, when she refused, myth has it that they were not able to move her, not even with a thousand men and fifty oxen. So they stacked firewood around her and set it alight, but she would not stop speaking about her beliefs. One of the soldiers speared her throat, but she kept talking.
Though lacking evidence, some stories go on to say that, unable to move or burn Santa Lucia, the guards then took out her eyes, others saying she tore out her own eyes and gave them to her ex-fiance who had admired them. In medieval accounts, her eyes were removed before her execution; and in art they sometimes appear on a tray that she is holding. Some end her story with God's restoration of her eyes, others with her death.
Another legend has Santa Lucia working against the Roman Emperor Diocletian to hide Christians in the catacombs; and in order to bring as many supplies with her as possible, she made available both her hands by attaching candles to a wreath on her head.
In Sicilia, the Catholic feast day of Santa Lucia is celebrated with feasts of pasta and a special dessert of wheat and sugar named cuccìa; the large grains of soft wheat representative of her eyes, and only eaten once a year. The dish commemorates the unexpected arrival of wheat to Palermo's port on Santa Lucia's Feast Day in 1646, at the end of a Sicilian food shortage. Tradition does not allow bread to be eaten on 13th December, and it is to be the cuccìa which is the main wheat source for the day.
