Note 337 — Chapter III

Sacred, no doubt, to St Lucia. In the Tyrol, according to the Festliche Jahr of Baron Reinsberg, St Lucia gives presents to girls, and St Nicholas to boys. The feast of St Lucia is celebrated on the 15th of September; that evening no one need stay up late, for whoever works that night finds all the work undone in the morning. The night of St Lucia is greatly feared (the saint loses her sight; the summer, the warm sunny season, comes to an end; the Madonna moon disappears, and then becomes queen of the sky, the guardian of light, as St Lucia), and conjurings are made against nightmare, devils, and witches. A cross is put into the bed that no witch may enter into it. That night, those who are under the influence of fate see, after eleven o'clock, upon the roofs of houses a light moving slowly and assuming different aspects; prognostications of good or evil are taken from this light, which is called Luzieschein.