Midsummer
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Image:Maypole.JPG Midsummer, or Litha as it was known by the ancient Germanic peoples, refers the period of time centered upon the summer solstice and the religious celebrations that accompany it. Also called "Midsommar" in Swedish, Midsummer-related holidays, traditions and celebrations, many of which are non-Christian in origin (apart from the designation "St John's Day"), are particularly important in Finland and Sweden, but found also in other parts of Northern Europe, Britain and elsewhere.
Solstitial celebrations still center upon June 24, which is no longer the longest day of the year. The difference between the Julian calendar year (365.2500 days) and the tropical year (365.2422 days) continue to move the day associated with the actual astronomical solstice forward approximately one day in approximately every seven centuries. (disputed — see [[: talk:Midsummer#{{{1|Disputed}}}|talk page]])
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History
In the 7th century, Saint Eligius (died 659/60) warned the recently-Christianized inhabitants of Flanders against these pagan solstitial celebrations. According to the Vita by his companion Ouen, he would say:
- "No Christian on the feast of Saint John or the solemnity of any other saint performs solestitia [summer solstice rites] or dancing or leaping or diabolical chants."
Indeed, as Saint Eligius demonstrates, Midsummer has been Christianized as the feast of Saint John the Baptist: notably, unlike all other saints' days, this feast is celebrated on his birthday and not on the day of his martyrdom, which is separately observed as the "Decollation of John the Baptist" on August 29. That more conventional day of Saint John the Baptist is not marked by Christian churches with the emphasis one might otherwise expect of such an important saint.
As for his solsticial birthday, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24th) as a Solemnity, which is the highest degree a liturgical feast can have. It is even one of the few saint's feasts that is celebrated even when it falls on a Sunday; typically the feast of a saint is superseded when it falls on a Sunday. There is hardly any way that the feast of St John the Baptist could be given more emphasis in the litugical calendar.
The celebration of Midsummer's Eve was from ancient times linked to the summer solstice. People believed that at midsummer plants had miraculous and healing powers and they therefore picked them on this night. Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely when the sun was turning southwards again. In later years, witches were also thought to be on their way to meetings with other evil powers.
In Sweden Midsummer celebration originates from the time before Christianity, it was celebrated as a sacrifice time in the sign of the fertility.
The solstice itself has remained a special moment of the annual cycle of the year since neolithic times. The concentration of the observance is not on the day as we reckon it, commencing at midnight or at dawn, but the pre-Christian beginning of the day, which falls on the previous eve. Midsummer's Eve is in Sweden and Finland considered the greatest festival of the year, comparable only with Walpurgis Night, Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve.
National traditions
Denmark
In Denmark the solstitial celebration is called Sankt Hans aften ("St. John's Eve"). It was an official holiday until 1770 and in accordance with the Danish tradition of celebrating a holiday on the evening before the actual day, it takes place on the evening of June 23. It is the day where the medieval wise men and women (the doctors of that time) would gather special herbs that they needed for the rest of the year to cure people.
It has been celebrated since the times of the Vikings and of Odin and Thor, by visiting healing water sources and making a large bonfire to ward away evil spirits. Today the water source tradition is gone. Bonfires on the beach, speeches, picnics and songs are traditional, although bonfires are built in many other places where beaches may not be close by (i.e. on the shores of lakes and other waterways, parks, etc.). In the 1920s a tradition of putting a witch made of straw and cloth on the bonfire emerged as a remembrance of the church's witchburnings from 1540 to 1693 (but unofficially a witch was lynched as late as 1897). This burning sends the witch to Bloksbjerg, the mountain 'Brocken' in the Harz region of Germany where the great witch gathering was thought to be held on this day.
Holger Drachmann and P.E. Lange-Müller wrote a beautiful midsommervise (Midsummer hymn) in 1885 called "Vi elsker vort land..." ("We Love Our Land") that is sung at every bonfire on this evening.
Estonia
- Main article:Jaaniõhtu (St. John's Day). In Estonia Jaaniõhtu (Midsummer's Eve) and ("St John's Day") are two of the most important days in the calendar. All around Estonia bonfires are being lit. That's the day, when parent's don't demand their children to go to sleep at all. Everyone's happy, drunk, traditions include jumping over bonfire, girls pick 7 different flowers and hope to dream about their future husband. Although Christian day of St. John is associated with the day, people tend to see it rather as pagan tradition.
Also, about a month before the festivity, government programs are put into place advising people to not drink and drive.
Finland
Before 1316, the summer solstice was called Ukon juhla, after an old Finnish god Ukko. In Karelia, people had many bonfires side by side, the biggest of which was called Ukko-kokko (the "bonfire of Ukko"). At present the midsummer holiday is known as Juhannus, or midsommar for the Swedish-speaking minority, and is the year's most notable occasion for drunkenness and revels.
Most of Finland burns bonfires (kokko) at lakesides and eats smoked fish from the same lakes. In the coastal areas that are the stronghold of the Finland-Swedish, these are supplanted by a maypole tradition transferred from Sweden and pickled herring.
When Finland was Christianized, the holiday was named after John the Baptist (Johannes) in order to give a Christian meaning for the pagan holiday. The traditions, however, remained quite unchanged and survive in modern-day Finland although they have lost their original purposes. In folk magic, still well known but no longer seriously practiced, midsummer was a very potent night and the time for many small rituals, mostly for young maidens seeking suitors.
Midsummer in Finland is celebrated a lot more intensely as in Sweden. A great many people get indecently drunk and happy. The statistics of the number of people drowned and killed in accidents are morbidly counted every year while the number of assaults also peaks.
Germany
On June 20th 1653 the Nuremberg town council issued the following order: :"Whereas experience heretofore hath shown, that after the old heathen use, on John's day in every year, in the country, as well in towns as villages, money and wood hath been gathered by young folk, and thereupon the so-called sonnenwendt or zimmet fire kindled, and thereat winebibbing, dancing about the said fire, leaping over the same, with burning of sundry herbs and flowers, and setting of brands from the said fire in the fields, and in many other ways all manner of superstitious work carried on---Therefore the Hon. Council of Nürnberg town neither can nor ought to forbear to do away with all such unbecoming superstition, paganism, and peril of fire on this coming day of St. John."
Ireland
In the Irish calendar, Midsummer is one of the four Irish Quarter days that divide the official calendar, and the evening before (St. John's Eve) is called Bonfire Night.
Poland
Especially in northern Poland – the Eastern Pomeranian and Kashubian regions, midsummer is celebrated on June 23rd. People dress like dangerous sea pirates,and girls throw wreaths made of flowers to the Baltic Sea. The midsummer day celebration starts at about 8:00 PM and lasts all night until sunrise. People celebrate this special day every year and call it Noc Świętojańska what means St. John's Night.
Italy
In Italy, the feast of Saint John the Baptist has been celebrated in Florence from ancient times, certainly in the Renaissance, with festivals sometimes lasting the three days from 21 to 24 June. Saint John the Baptist was, and is, the patron saint of the city, which was such an important State in the XI-XV-XVI centuries.
Jersey
In Jersey most of the former midsummer customs are largely ignored nowadays. The custom known as Les cônes d'la Saint Jean was observed as late as the 1970s - horns or conch shells were blown. Ringing the bachîn (a large brass preserving pan) at midsummer to frighten away evil spirits survived as a custom on some farms until the 1940s and has been revived as a folk performance in the 21st century. This tradition is called in Jèrriais faithe braithe les peîles [1].
A large fair in the parish of St. John was suppressed by an Act of the States of Jersey in 1797 following large scale disorder. A custom which survived longer, until the First World War, was that of making milk-à-punch: young people would rise early and steal milk from cows in the field and eggs from the chicken-run (sometimes with the connivance of the farmer turning a blind eye) and make a warm flip-type drink.
Latvia
In Latvia, Midsummer is called Jāņi (Jānis being Latvian for John) or Līgo Svētki (Svētki = festival). It is a national holiday and Latvians consider Jāņi about as important as Christmas.
Midsummer is celebrated on a large scale by almost everyone in Latvia and by people of Latvian origin abroad. Wherever you go in Latvia during Jāņi, you'll see solsticial bonfires. Celebrations consist of a lot of traditional elements (eating Jāņu cheese, drinking beer, singing hundreds of Latvian folk songs dedicated to Jāņi, jumping over the bonfire, wearing wreaths/crowns made of flowers (for the women) and oak leaves (for the men)) together with modern commercial products and ideas. Small oak branches with leaves are being attahed to cars in Latvia during that festivity.
Lithuania
At the beginning of the 20th century, solstitial bonfires were common all over Lithuania, but Soviet years have repressed such customs. The Festival of Kupolė (Kupolinės) was associated with the Feast of St John the Baptist (Joninės).
Norway
As in Denmark, Sankthansaften is celebrated on 23 June in Norway. The day is also called Jonsok, which means "Johannes wake," important in Catholic times with pilgrimages to churches and holy springs. For instance, right up to 1840, there was a pilgrimage to the stave church in Røldal (southwest Norway) whose crucifix was said to have healing powers.
In parts of Norway a custom of arranging mock marriages, both between adults and between children, is still kept alive. The wedding was meant to symbolise the blossoming of new life. Such weddings are known to have taken place in the 1800s, but the custom is believed to be older.
In the last century Midsummer's Eve was largely celebrated in the local communities, but during the 1990s it has developed into a more private party with family and friends gathering round a bonfire to dance.
Russia
Ivan Kupala was the old Russian name for John the Baptist. Up to the present day, the Russian Midsummer Night (or Ivan's Day) is known as one of the most expressive Russian folk and pagan holidays. Ivan Kupala Day is the day of summer solstice celebrated in Russia and Ukraine on June 23 OS and July 6 NS. This is a pagan fertility rite, which has been accepted into the Orthodox Christian calendar.
Sweden
Image:Midsommardans av Anders Zorn 1897.jpg
In Sweden, Midsummer's Eve and Midsummer's Day is moved to the third Friday and Saturday of June. The main celebrations takes place on the Friday, the traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge maypole. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover the entire pole.
Raising and dancing around a maypole is an activity that attracts families. People dancing around the pole listen to traditional music and the wear traditional folk costumes. The year's first potatoes, pickled herring, sour cream, and possibly the first strawberries of the season are on the menu.
Because Midsummer is one of the times of the year when magic is believed to be the strongest, it was a good night to perform rituals to look into the future. Today, young girls pick bouquets of seven or nine different flowers and put them under their pillow in the hope of dreaming about their future husband.
To many Swedes this holiday is seen as a holiday of partying, and as the start of the summer. Many Swedes would rather have Midsummer's Eve as their National Day.
United Kingdom
In Great Britain from the 13th century Midsummer was celebrated on Midsummer Eve (St. John's Eve, June 23) and St. Peter's Eve (June 28) with the lighting of bonfires, feasting and merrymaking. The tradition largely fell to the Reformation, but persisted in rural areas up until the nineteenth century before petering out.
Other Midsummer festivities had uneasy relations with the Reformed establishment. The Chester Midsummer Watch Parade, begun in 1498, was held at every Summer Solstice in years when the Chester Mystery Plays were not performed. Despite the cancellation of the plays in 1575, the parade continued; in 1599, however, the Lord Mayor ordered the parades banned and the costumes destroyed. The parade was permanently banned in 1675.
See also Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
June 24, Midsummer Day, the feast of St John the Baptist, is one of the quarter days in England.
USA
Image:Solstice fire Montana.jpg
The NYC Swedish Midsummer celebrations in Battery Park, New York City, attracts some 3,000-5,000 people annually, which makes it one of the largest celebrations after the ones held in Leksand and at the Skansen Park in Stockholm. This event is cohosted by the Swedish Consulate in NYC and the NYC Parks Dept.
Modern celebration
Litha
Midsummer or Litha is listed on the reconstructed Germanic calendar used by some Germanic Neopagans. In modern times, Litha is celebrated by Germanic Neopagans or Heathens who emphasize the reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon Germanic paganism.
Neopaganism & Wicca
Midsummer, usually referred to by the traditional name, Litha, is one of the eight solar holidays or sabbats of Neopaganism, especially Wicca. It is celebrated on the Summer Solstice or close to it. The holiday is considered the turning point at which summer reaches its height and the sun shines longest, but at the same time it is said we are reminded that the days will soon begin to shorten. Among the Neopagan sabbats, Midsummer is preceded by Beltane and followed by Lughnasadh or Lammas.
- See also Wheel of the Year.
External links
- De mensibus Anglorum ChXV - Bede's Anglo-Saxon Calendar (in Latin)
- Reconstructing the Gothic Calendar
- Observing Bede's Anglo-Saxon Calendar
- The Anglo-Saxon Year
- Witchvox Midsummer
- Hall of Avalon Modern Neopagan celebration of Litha
References
bg:Еньовден ca:Nit de Sant Joan da:Midsommer de:Mittsommerfest fi:Juhannus sv:Midsommar