Midsummer - 21st/24th June The summer solstice is the longest period of daylight during the year and falls on the 21st of June. Midsummer is traditionally celebrated on the 24th of June despite this, the solstice would have fallen on the 24th of June approximately 2100 years ago. Midsummer's Day was named as the feast of St John the Baptist by the church around the 4-7th centuries. In Sweden and Finland, Midsummer's eve is the biggest festival of the year. Swedish traditions echo the British May day traditions of raising and decorating a pole then dancing around it. Maypoles are also found in parts of Finland where the festival was previously dedicated to the God Ukon and involved bonfires (which are still central in less coastal areas). Denmark has entirely held on to the traditional bonfires of midsummer which used to be made near water sources in order to ward off evil spirits. It seems the midsummer bonfire was common across most of Europe including Lithuania, Germany and the United Kingdom. However there is no solid evidence that the Celts celebrated Midsummer and it's presence in Britain may have been a foreign import, entering with the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Bede stated that the early English held Midsummer to be of no importance. Also there is no evidence for midsummer fires in the gaelic hebrides but they do appear in the Scandinavian influenced shetland and orkney. Ever since the 4th century up until the 19th scattered reports have existed for northern europe of the rolling of wheels down hills on Midsummer Eve. Traditionally set on fire and often rolled towards a stream or river the wheel brought or signified (by the length it remained lit) a good harvest and good luck for the community. Midsummer Eve was also considered propitious for divination and especially for gathering medicinal herbs. Being the celebration of an agrarian culture Midsummer was very concerned with the harvest, fire would be carried round fields to encourage good yields. Decorations involved branches and other greens (birch and fennel were common), flowers and lights. Processions involved many torches and buckets of fire and much pageantry in the medieval period. As with most festivities in the United Kingdom, the standing traditions were mostly wiped out during the reformation in the 16th century. The celebrations persisted the longest in those areas of Scotland which held them, fires were still lit in some areas until the 1940s, and in Ireland where they persist even to the present day. Fire festivals in Europe seem to be for the most part centered on the idea of fire as purifying and protective. The focus usually on ensuring health, luck and good harvests. There seems to be little truly religious aspect to the traditions, they are based more on superstition and rarely focus on deity, even the solar aspect seeming related to the sun as an image of fire rather than as a deity. In Egypt the summer solstice marked one of their most important calendar events, the Nile flood. The rising of Sirius during this time signified the New Year. In modern paganism the summer solstice, midsummer or litha as it is sometimes known (a term that previously referred to the entire summer season) is one of the eight points on the wheel of the year. The Goddess is burgeoning with child and the the God reigns with his full strength. This is shadowed by the fact that he can only decrease in strength from now until midwinter.
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