An important festive emergency linked to the combination of the “wheat-death cycle” and the seasonal transition (especially the solstice one) is the feast of Saint Lucy, on December 13.
Saint Lucy, a Syracuse martyr, thanks to the name formed on the Latin word for 'light', has become the protector of sight, inheriting a function of the goddess Artemis, venerated in ancient times on the island of Ortigia, who was the first nucleus of the city of Syracuse.
According to the tradition of the Western Church, Lucy was martyred on December 13, 304. Since in the first half of the 14th century, due to the fact that the Julian calendar was earlier than the calendar year, the date of December 13 coincided with the winter solstice, the feast in honor of the Saint became the announcement of the new light, the promise of longer days and shorter nights. Thus, some proverbs were derived, for example: Saint Lucy is the shortest day there is, or From Saint Lucy to Christmas the day is extended by a dog's step. Since 1582, when the new calendar came into force, which restored the 21st as the solstitial date, these proverbial sayings have lost their original calendar value, while continuing to be handed down. Traces of it also remain in Sardinia, for example in Cossoine: Dae Santa Lughia creschet unu passu 'e pia, dae missa 'e puddu unu passu 'e puddu ('From Saint Lucy the days grow by a chicken's step, and from Christmas by a chicken's foot').
In many Sicilian towns, for the Feast of the Saint, it is a tradition to prepare cuccìa, wheat and boiled legumes.
In Sicilian popular tradition, the relationship between the saint and wheat is of ancient origins and is motivated by some miracles attributed to her, such as having landed wheat ships in her hometown exhausted by famine, or having induced a miraculous rain of smoke.
Among the customs that characterize the ceremonial nucleus relating to Saint Lucy, rich in stratifications, there is no shortage of offerings (as in the festivities of late October-early November) to vicarial figures (i.e. ambassadors) of the deceased: the Virgineddi, poor girls or orphans to whom it was customary to offer a lunch.
Even in Sardinia, there was a relationship between wheat and the saint. As testified in 1900 by priest Michele Licheri, on the day before the eve of Saint Lucy in Ghilarza, the boys knocked door to door and uttered the formula of this: “A su trigu de Santa Lughia! ”, receiving wheat, fava beans, chickpeas and other legumes.
If the connection between the saint and wheat is certainly the oldest element, which in Sardinia is manifested by the gift of wheat to the questioning, the most recent is the consumption of sweetened breads (or sweets) with sapa.
In Ghilarza itself, for example, the panischedda (sapato bread) was prepared, blessed and distributed in the church. At Quartu Sant'Elena, an informant interviewed in 2010 (see. S. Paulis, Sweets and Festivities. The culture of dessert in Sardinia between tradition and innovation, Cagliari, Cuec, 2011, p. 49) reported that at the first Mass on December 13, an arrogheddeddu de pani 'e saba benedittu (a piece of blessed sapid bread) was distributed. In the same year, a ninety-year-old informant from Dorgali reported the custom, which had already disappeared then, of preparing sweetened bread at home, on Saint Lucy's day, she knows tiriha. The preparation was simple. A little sapa was spread on a sheet of modde chene carasau bread (on a sheet of bread not yet carasau, that is, toasted) and then baked. When cooked, it folded into two or four parts, which, when portioned in this way, assumed the function of therapeutic preparations, since the ingestion was accompanied by invocations to the Saint, such as “Saint Luhìa will look after me at my sight” (Saint Lucy, protect my sight).
Saint Lucia, in fact, is considered the patron saint of sight not only for the reasons related to the above-mentioned origin of her name (< lat. lux, lucis), but also because, as the hagiographic tradition narrates, during the martyrdom her eyes were torn out, which in classical iconography the Martyr shows on a saucer. This hagiographic and iconographic tradition recalls the Nuoro custom of preparing sas paneddas de Santa Luchia, soft esplanades, whose variously decorated surface has two holes that symbolically recall the eyes of the Saint.
The tradition of Orosei, which prevailed for the same holiday, also deserves mention, where the tìlica de Santa Luchia, a preparation similar to that of Dorgale, has given way to sas tineddas, desserts with a shape similar to that of an eye.
(For other therapeutic food preparations certified on the Island for the commemoration of Saint Lucy's birth to heaven, see the above-mentioned text S. Paulis, Sweets and Feasts. The culture of dessert in Sardinia between tradition and innovation, Cagliari, Cuec, 2011, p. 49).
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