Midsummer Traditions Around the World

Around 21 June, in the older agricultural calendar of the northern world, the sun reaches the height of its power. The days are longest, the hay is ready to cut, the meadows are thick with flowers, and the night itself is a kind of miracle, a near-permanent dusk in which the sun barely sets before it begins to climb again. The festival that marks the moment is one of the most widely observed in the world. In the north, it is called Midsummer; in the older Celtic calendar, it is the eve of Beltane; in the Christian calendar, it is the nativity of Saint John the Baptist.

This article traces Midsummer traditions from the Swedish Midsommar and the Norwegian Sankthansaften to the Russian Kupala Night, the British Beltane, the Brazilian Festa Junina, and the Spanish Hogueras de San Juan. It follows the recurring motifs: the bonfires, the pole, the leaping over the flames, the gathering of herbs, the bathing in dew, the search for the flowering fern, the marriage divinations, and the Christian overlay of the Baptist.

The Swedish Midsommar

The Swedish Midsommar, observed on the Friday between 19 and 25 June, is one of the most beloved festivals of the Scandinavian year. The centre of the celebration is the maypole — a tall cross-pole dressed with birch leaves and wild flowers, around which the villagers dance the traditional ring-dances. The food is simple: herring and new potatoes, chives and sour cream, the first strawberries of the year. The Swedish Midsommar is treated, by the folklorist, as a remarkably well-preserved example of the older Midsummer tradition.

The Norwegian Sankthansaften and the Danish Sankt Hans

In Norway, the festival is Sankthansaften — the eve of Saint John’s day, on 23 June. The great bonfire is lit on the shore or on a hill, and the community gathers to sing, eat, and watch the fire die down. The custom of the sankthansbål is older than the Christian overlay and still carries many of the older motifs. In Denmark, the festival is Sankt Hans aften, with the lighting of the Sankt Hans bål and the recitation of a verse about the witch going off to the Brocken. The custom of burning an effigy of a witch is one of the most striking Midsummer motifs in the Danish tradition.

The Finnish Juhannus

The Finnish Juhannus, observed on the Saturday between 20 and 26 June, is the great Midsummer festival of Finland. The bonfire — in Finnish juhannuskokko — is lit by a lake or by the sea, and the community gathers to dance, to drink, to swim, and to gather the seven or nine flowers of the Midsummer night. The flowers are placed under the pillow; in a dream, the future husband or wife is to appear. The Finnish Juhannus has many connections to the older Sami and Finno-Ugric calendar, and the sauna, the lakeside swimming, the kokko bonfire, and the gathering of the seven flowers are elements of a remarkably well-preserved older Midsummer.

The Estonian Jaanipäev, the Latvian Jāņi, the Lithuanian Joninės

The three Baltic festivals of Midsummer are among the most striking in Europe. The Estonian Jaanipäev, on 23 June, is observed with great bonfires on the coast, with the singing of traditional songs, and with the gathering of the Jaaniõhtu herbs. The Latvian Jāņi, observed on 24 June, is the great national festival of Latvia, with the Jāņu siers, the special Midsummer cheese, and the Līgo songs, inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. The Lithuanian Joninės, also called Rasos, is the great Midsummer festival, with the gathering of the Rasos herbs and the symbolic search for the paparčio žiedas, the flowering fern.

These three Baltic festivals were suppressed for decades under Soviet rule, when the singing of traditional songs at the Midsummer fire was treated as a quiet act of national resistance. Since 1991, they have been restored as central national holidays.

The Russian Kupala Night, the Polish Noc Kupały, the German Mittsommer

In the East Slavic world, the Midsummer festival is Kupala Night (in Russian, Kupal’naya noch’). The bonfire is the kupala fire, and the central act of the night is the leaping over the flames, two people together, hand in hand, holding the wreaths they have woven. The girl who loses her wreath in the river will be married within the year. The search for the paparasni kvit, the flowering fern, is the older agricultural motif: the fern, in East Slavic folk belief, blooms only at midnight on Kupala night, and whoever finds it will be rich. The Polish Noc Kupały preserves many of the same motifs. The German Mittsommer, with the Sankt-Johannis-Feuer and the Johanniskraut (Saint John’s wort), is a more modest version of the same festival.

The British Beltane and May Day

In the British Isles, the older Midsummer festival was Beltane, the fire-festival of 1 May in the older Celtic year. The highland custom of driving the cattle between two fires was still observed in the early twentieth century, and the lighting of the Beltane hill-fires was, in many parts of Ireland and Scotland, the central act of the May Eve. The English May Day, observed on 1 May, is in many ways a continuation of the older Beltane: the May Queen, the Green Man, the Morris dancers, the maypole, the hobby horse. The survival of the English May Day is one of the most striking in the European folk tradition.

The Brazilian Festa Junina, the Spanish Hogueras, the French Feu de la Saint-Jean

The Midsummer festival has also been carried, by the European diaspora, to the southern hemisphere. The Brazilian Festa Junina, observed throughout June, is a great festival of the rural north-east, with the quadrilha dance, the country costumes, the fogueira bonfire, and the balão lantern. The Festa Junina has roots in the Portuguese and the older Iberian Midsummer, blended with African and Indigenous Brazilian folk traditions. The Spanish Hogueras de San Juan, observed on the night of 23 June, is the great fire-festival of the Mediterranean coast, with bonfires on the beach, the jumping of the flames, and the bathing of the feet in the sea. The French Feu de la Saint-Jean, observed on the eve of Saint John’s day, is the great bonfire of Provence, with the saut dans le feu and the gathering of the herbes de la Saint-Jean.

The Recurring Motifs

When the Midsummer festivals of the world are placed side by side, a small set of recurring motifs is visible. The bonfire is universal, lit on a hill or a shore, with the community gathered around it. The pole is also universal: the maypole, the Midsommarstång, the Jāņu ozols (the oak of Jāņi), the Lithuanian Rasos pole. The leaping over the flames is found from Russia to Brazil. The gathering of herbs is found across the European tradition. The bathing in dew is found in the British, German, and French Midsummers, with the belief that the dew of the night has healing powers. The search for the flowering fern is found in the East Slavic and Polish Midsummers. The marriage divinations — the wreaths on the river, the dream of the future husband, the apple-peel initial — are found across the northern and eastern tradition.

These motifs, taken together, suggest that Midsummer was, in the older agricultural calendar, the moment of the year at which the boundary between the human and the natural grew thin. The Samhain festival, at the other end of the year, is the moment at which the boundary between the living and the dead grows thin.

Saint John the Baptist and the Christian Overlay

The Christian overlay of the Midsummer festival is the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, observed on 24 June. The older Celtic Beltane and the older Slavic and Germanic Midsummer were already centred on the solstice, and the church, in the early Middle Ages, deliberately placed the Baptist on 24 June, near the older fire-festivals, and absorbed many of the older motifs. The bonfire was re-read as the fire of the Baptist, who had prepared the way of the Lord. The herbs gathered at midnight were re-read as the herbs of John. The leaping over the flames was re-read as the leaping of the saint. The connection between the older Midsummer and the Christian Saint John is one of the clearest examples of the Christian overlay of the older European calendar.

Sources and Further Reading

O’Drisceoil, Cóilín. Puck of the Droms: The Lives and Literature of the Irish Travellers. Roberts Rinehart, 2002.
Hutton, Ronald. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford University Press, 1996.
Moszyński, Leszek. The Dawn of European Civilization: The Balkan World in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Elsevier, 1965.
Srejović, Dragoslav. Europe’s First Monumental Sculpture: New Discoveries at Lepenski Vir. Thames & Hudson, 1972.