Midsummer is the period of time around the summer solstice. Midsummer-related holidays, traditions and celebrations are found in Scandinavia, Northern Europe, Great Britain and elsewhere. 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. Midsummer is also a Neopagan holiday.
Denmark
In Denmark the celebration is called Sankthans aften (St. John's Eve). It takes place on the evening before the summer solstice. Bonfires on the beach, speeches and songs are traditional, although bonfires are built in many other places, where beaches may not be closeby (on the shores of lakes and other waterways, parks, etc.). Tradition also includes the burning of a cloth witch on top of the bonfire, which sends her to Bloksbjerg, a mountain in the Harz region of Germany.
Sweden
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 phallic maypole. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover, to "may", the entire pole.
Raising and dancing around a maypole is primarily an activity which attracts families, even though it traditionally is a fertility ritual. Dancing around the pole is often accompanied by traditional music and the wearing of traditional folk costumes. The year's first potatoes, pickled herring, sour cream, and possibly the first strawberries of the season are on the menu.
Youngsters, not yet responsible for any family, demonstrate their eagerness to get one by intense procreation, dancing and drinking (often in the reversed order).
Finland
In Finland the midsummer holiday is a notable occasion for drunkenness and revels. As in Sweden, maypoles and pickled herring is the hallmark of the coastal areas, where also the Finland-Swedish language and culture have its stronghold. In the rest of Finland, bonefires take the place of the maypole, and smoked fish from the nearby lake is eaten instead of pickled herring, but then the differences end. Midsummer is in Finland celebrated at least as intencely as in Sweden.
Many people get indecently drunk and happy. The statistics of the number of men drowned with their zipper open is morbidly recounted every year. Also statistics of stabbing demonstrates a peak for this weekend.
Great Britain
In Britain from the thirteenth 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.
June 24 is Midsummer Day, the feast of St John the Baptist, and one of the quarter days in England.
USA
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.
Neopaganism
Midsummer is one of the eight solar holidays or sabbatss of Neopaganism. It is celebrated on the 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.
This holiday is also sometimes called Litha. Its use as the name for this holiday may trace back to its appearance in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Prior to that, "Litha" appears to refer to the entire summer season.
Among the Neopagan sabbats, Midsummer is preceded by Beltane and followed by Lughnasadh or Lammas. See also Wheel of the Year.
See Also