The Midsummer festival is an annual Nordic folk custom held on June 21st, the longest day and shortest night of the year.

Even today, the Saturday before Midsummer Day (Swedish: midsommarafton) is a public holiday.

Midsummer is a festival of healing and one of the holiest festivals in the annual cycle. Solstice bonfires are lit, and the sun god Baldur is honored.

 

Houses are decorated with birch branches or birch wreaths.

A widespread Midsummer custom is the erection of a birch tree or a tree trunk adorned with birch branches and flowers.

It is the time of fertile fields and blooming meadows. On the day of the summer solstice, virgins and young unmarried girls collect seven different types of summer flowers, which must be done in silence and with seriousness, without giggling or laughing uncontrollably. Hand-woven flower wreaths are bound and worn on the head in the hair. Traditionally, the unmarried place these wreaths under their pillows so that they may dream of their loved ones and vice-versa. According to custom, people dance in light-colored clothing with flower wreaths, circling the solstice bonfire in a clockwise direction. After a long period of balanced celebrating and flirting, many relationships still begin today, resulting in a noticeably high number of births the following March. Lovers hold hands and jump over the solstice bonfire without letting go to proclaim their lasting love for one another. The leap over the fire, however, is also a “cleansing ritual,” symbolically casting everything that hinders life, everything useless, and everything old and bad into the fire.

Wreaths also held symbolic protective power; flower wreaths are hung in houses to protect everyone who lives there.

 

Midsummer and the myths and legends in the world of elves

Myths and legends say that elves and trolls dance across meadows on Midsummer Night. The morning dew on the meadows is said to have healing properties for humans and animals, and it was therefore collected in pitchers for baking bread or rolls.

On Midsummer Night, the elves (beings of light) and trolls dance and celebrate extensively. Therefore, people should not forget to leave some food and drink for them, protected under a shrub or bush. Midsummer Night was attributed with special magic, along with all the plants and mystical beings that live within it. That is why elves, dwarves, and trolls still have a high status in Scandinavia and are almost indispensable to the annual cycle festivals.

 

Midsummer celebration as a “half-year cycle celebration” June – December

Six months after the Midsummer festival, the winter solstice is celebrated.

In Sweden, the Lucia festival is celebrated on December 13th as a bringer of salvation and light in one of the darkest months of the year.

 

Germanic month name Brachet (June)

Brachet or Brachmonat comes from the Old High German word Brahmanod.

The term originated from the three-field system of crop rotation:

 

on one field, winter grain is sown before the start of winter

on another field, summer seeds and summer grain are sown between April and May.

a third field was left fallow; the meadow grass that sprouted there was used to feed the cattle.

 

The fallow field was then plowed in the following year and re-sown with grain.

The month name Brachet is derived from the fallow “Brachfeld.”

 

The month name June is named after the Roman sky goddess Juno.