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St John the Baptist's Eve, how clear and bright Sinks the broad sun upon the waveless sea! Barton Wilford; from 'St John's Eve' If it rains on midsummer-eve, the filberts will be spoiled. Johnsmas fires should be lit at the moment the sun sets. The rustic maid invokes her swain; The young maid stole through the cottage door, St John's wort doth charm all witches away |
I was part of these 21st anniversary
celebrations in May, 1994 at my former home, |
In Sardinia the gardens of Adonis are still planted in
connection with the Great Midsummer festival which bears the
name of St John.
At the end of March or on the first of April, a young man of the village
presents himself to a girl, and asks her to be his comare (gossip or
sweetheart) … At the end of May the girl makes a pot of the bark of the
cork-trees, fills it with earth, and sows a handful of wheat and barley in
it. The pot being placed in the sun and often watered, the corn sprouts
rapidly and has a good head by Midsummer Eve … The pot is than called
Erme or Nennere. On St John's Day the young man and
the girl, dressed in their best, accompanied by a long retinue and
preceded by children gambolling and frolicking, move in procession to a
church outside the village … they sit down in a ring on the grass and
eat eggs and herbs to the music of flutes. Wine is mixed in a cup and
passed round, each drinking as it passes. This is the general Sardinian
custom. As practised at Ozieri
it has some special features … on the Eve of St John the window-sills
are draped with rich clothes, on which the pots are placed, adorned with
crimson and blue silk and ribbons of various colours. On each of the pots
they used formerly to place a statuette or cloth doll dressed as a woman,
or a Priapus-like figure made of paste
… The correspondence of these Sardinian pots of grain to the gardens of
Adonis seems complete …
Customs of the same sort are
observed at the same season in Sicily. Pairs of boys and girls become
gossips … on St. John's Day, by drawing each a hair from his or her head
and performing various ceremonies over then. Thus they tie the hairs
together and throw them up in the air, or exchange them over a potsherd,
which they afterwards break in two, preserving each a fragment with pious
care. The tie formed in the latter way is supposed to last for life …
We have seen that the
rites of Tammuz or Adonis were commonly celebrated about
midsummer; according to Jerome, their date was June.
Sir James George
Frazer (1854
- 1941), The
Golden Bough, 1922
But
the season at which these fire-festivals have been most generally held all
over Europe is the summer solstice, that is Midsummer Eve (the
twenty-third of June) or Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth of June)
… we cannot doubt that the celebrations dates from a time long before
the beginning of our era. Whatever their origin, they have prevailed all
over this quarter of the globe, from Ireland on the West to Russia on the
East, and from Norway and Sweden on the North to Spain and Greece on the
South. According to a mediaeval writer, the three great features of the
Midsummer celebration were the bonfires, the procession with torches round
the fields, and the custom of rolling a wheel … and he explains the
custom of trundling a wheel to mean that the sun, having now reached the
highest point in the ecliptic, begins thenceforward to descend.
Frazer; ibid
At eve last Midsummer no sleep I sought,
But to the field a bag of hemp-seed brought:
I scattered round the seed on every side,
And three times, in a trembling accent cried: -
"This hemp-seed with my virgin hand I sow,
Who shall my true love be, the crop shall mow."
I straight looked back, and, if my eyes speak truth,
With his keen scythe behind me came the youth.
John Gay, English poet; 'Pastoral'
… if we were able to understand sufficiently well the order of the universe, we should find that it surpasses all the desires of the wisest of us, and that it is impossible to render it better than it is, not only for all in general, but also for each one of us in
particular …
Gottfried Leibniz, German philosopher born on June 23, 1646; from The Monadology, 1714
We are met on the path of mutual respect and fair dealing. No advantage will be taken on either side, but there shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for even parents sometimes chide their children too severely; not brothers, for even brothers sometimes differ. Our friendship I will not liken to a chain, for that the rain might rust or a fallen tree might break. We are as if one man's body were divided into two parts. We are one flesh and one blood.
William Penn
(1644 - 1718) to the Lenni Lenape native American tribe at the signing of the peace treaty on June 23,
1683
While the sun shines, and the river runs we will keep peace with William Penn and his children.
The Lenni Lenape's reply to William Penn at the signing of the peace treaty, June 23,
1683
Many women now, educated more highly than they used to be – women with strong brains and loving hearts – are being driven into bitterness and into angry opposition, because their ambition is thwarted at every step, and their eager longing for a fuller life are forced back and crushed. A tree will grow, however you may try to stunt it. You may disfigure it, you may force it into awkward shapes, but grow it will.
Annie Besant (1847- 1933), English social reformer and Theosophist;
The Political Status of Women, 1874; on June 23, 1888 she wrote an article in her newspaper,
The Link, that drew public attention to white slavery in London
Not out of right practice comes right thinking, but out of right thinking comes right practice. It matters enormously what you think. If you think falsely, you will act mistakenly; if you think basely, your conduct will suit your thinking.
Annie Besant
… those who can serve best, those who help most, those who sacrifice most, those are the people who will be loved in life and honoured in death, when all questions of colour are swept away and when in a free country free citizens shall meet on equal grounds.
Annie Besant
June 23
is
the 174th
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (175th in leap years), with 191
days remaining.
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Midsummer Eve (St John's Eve):
bonfires and a magickal
herb
Click image at left for larger view (opens in a new window)
On this night in olde Britain, people would
go into the woods and bring back branches to their homes,
celebrating the eve of the birth of John the Baptist (the only Christian saint whose birth date is a feast, as well as the day of his death
– August
29). Fairies speak in human tongues on this night; the flower
of happiness blooms.
St
John's bonfires
In olde
Britain, tonight was bonfire night and fires were made composed of
contributions of fuel called boons.
Men and boys jumped through the fires in accordance with an ancient
custom. People would walk about the towns for much of the night,
usually garlanded with flowers or with ribbons and jewels - some citizens would not go themselves but
send a substitute.
Oxford
greenery
At Oxford on St John's Eve, a sermon used to be preached from a stone pulpit in one corner
of Magdalen College. The court was decked with green boughs so that
the preaching might resemble that of John the Baptist in the
wilderness.
St John's Eve, London
In the Middle Ages, about two thousand men would parade through London's streets, garlanded with flowers and bedecked with jewels. The watchmen, as they were called, carried tar-burning torches called cressets, and there were bonfires in the streets. Henry VIII banned the custom, probably afraid of such a large assembly of armed men.
Tonight in Ireland
In Ireland
it used to be believed that tonight the souls of the living leave
their bodies and wander to the place, by land or sea, where death
will finally separate them from the flesh. It might be that the St
John's Eve bonfires and night watches originally to allowed people
to prevent the soul's wandering.
Marriage prognostication
In
Britain, it was the custom on St John's Eve for an unmarried woman
who was fasting to lay out a cloth at midnight with bread and
cheese, and sit down as if to eat, leaving open the door to the
street. Along would come the man she was eventually to marry; he
would enter the room and salute her with a bow, then leave - or, so it is said.
Midsummer Eve, Casper, Wyoming, USA
By Diana Schuetz, for Wilson's Almanac Book of Days
As the sun enters the final hours of its longest trip of the year across the sky, hundreds of people gather on Casper Mountain to celebrate the Midsummer Eve in an area called Crimson Dawn. This celebration, observed annually, is rooted in the stories of phantom woodsmen, fairies and witches invented by Elizabeth 'Neal' Forsling, an artist and writer who, with her two daughters, homesteaded Crimson Dawn more than three-quarters of a century ago.
A native Missourian with a gift for storytelling
and a keen imagination, Neal hosted a Midsummer's Eve party for her friends and
their children in the 1930s. In the following years, others joined in on the
celebration and stories, until now, kids of all ages join the curator of the
Crimson Dawn Park and Museum on a journey through the woods accompanied by many
Casper citizens who role-play the mythical creatures that have long romped among
the trees – witches, elves, and other forest spirits and sprites.
Neal's cabin contains some of her artwork, while marked trails leading from it
reach out to pockets of fantasy among the quite ordinary-looking backdrop of
pines and aspen. Each bend in the path hides the homes of life-sized witches,
fairies of different colors, and even a leprechaun!
Once the curator has led the day's celebrants along the trails and told the
stories behind each fantasy creature, evening has set in, and everyone traipses
back to the cabin where they are served hot chocolate and cookies while an
enormous bonfire is started some distance away.
Soon, tired children are loaded back into their vehicles for the trip down the
mountain, and tucked into their beds to dream of mythical adventures and
make-believe creatures, while the adults smile a little more and remember the
fantasy stories of their own youth!
The
magickal herb
It was customary in Britain and Europe on St
John's Eve, to gather certain herbs, such as St John's wort,
vervain, trefoil and rue, all of which were believed to have magical
properties.
St John's wort (Hypericum
perforatum) does, in fact, have scientifically proven
anti-depressant qualities. Drinks
were brewed from it to cure madness, sciatica, epilepsy and
paralysis. The salve made from the herb cured wounds from spears and
swords - or, so it is said.
Flowers of St John's wort used to be collected in Britain and Europe on St John's Eve (tonight) and worn on the body or hung over doorways as protection against witches. It was also placed near windows as witches can look in to cast a spell. Even in recent times the people of the Landes district of France would make crosses of wort on their doors.
In Britain, one old custom was for a maiden to pick a sprig of St John's wort and wear it in her bosom until Christmas, by which time the man who was to be her husband, and he alone, would see it and take it from her ...
Read more at the St John's wort page in the Scriptorium
June 21Midsummer lore in the Book of Days
Summer Solstice:
"Another interesting thing about the Feast of St. John: the Breviary's hymn for this day, Ut queant laxis, is the source of our names of musical notes -- Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do. The hymn, attributed to Paul the Deacon (ca. A.D. 720-799), was noted by a monk to rise one note in the diatonic C-Scale with each verse. The syllables sung at each rise in pitch give us the names of our notes (the 'Ut' was later changed to 'Do' for easier pronunciation):
Ut queant laxis
Resonare fibris
Mira gestorum
Famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti
Labii reatum, Sanc
Te Ioannes"
St John's Eve Orcadian bonfire traditions Suns, Wheels and Megalithic Tombs St John's Eve & St John's Day customs
Frazer, Sir James George (1854 - 1941),
The Golden Bough, 1922, Ch. 62. The Fire-Festivals of Europe. Section 5. The Midsummer Fires
Festival of Jani, ancient Latvia
In ancient Latvia, Jani was the most important
festival. It was held on June 23
and celebrated the Summer
Solstice. In preparation, everything in the town,
including buildings and livestock, was decorated with garlands of papardi
(ferns) and janu zali ('John's
grass'). The gates, doors, barns and beds were decorated
with ozolu (oak) and berzu (birch) branches. Doors were adorned
especially well in order to keep bad spirits (such as witches) away.
The people feasted on beer and a special ceremonial caraway
cheese. The houses were scrubbed clean and emptied of
furniture except for tables and chairs.
The leader of
the celebration was called Janis
– a common Latvian name; one of the requirements of being a leader
was to be called Janis (Janu tevs). He handed out beer and wore an oak wreath while his wife (Janu
mate) handed out cheese and wore a flower crown.
Then, the people lit bonfires and sang songs while
dancing. The songs included the word Ligo, which mystically
brought the god Janis to the land to bless the fields and give them
an abundant harvest. He was thought of as tall and handsome, riding
a horse and wearing an oak wreath.
Children traditionally went into the woods on Jani,
searching for the fern blossom (like a 'snipe hunt' in North
America, since the fern blossom does not exist, or else this was St
John's wort) which supposedly bloomed only at night on Jani.
Searching for, and theoretically finding, the fern blossom brought
good luck. Adults jumped across fires and danced ritual dances
around the fire or a sacred oak.
Source: Wikipedia
Day of Cuchulaine, Ireland
Cuchulaine is an Irish hero who is interpreted as one embodiment of the Green Man, an ancient European archetype of the forest-dwelling human.
Night of the fairy goddesses, Ainé and her sister
Finnen (Fenne; Fennel), Ireland
"Here," observed Mr Alfred Nutt, "we have the antique ritual carried out on a spot hallowed to one of the antique powers, watched over and shared in by those powers themselves. Nowhere save in Gaeldom could be found such a pregnant illustration of the identity of the fairy class with the venerable powers to ensure whose goodwill rites and sacrifices, originally fierce and bloody, now a mere simulacrum of their pristine form, have been performed for countless ages."
Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race (1911), Ch. 3
The Celtic peoples have many references to
fairies in their myths and legends. Fairies are also known as 'the
little folk', but this can also refer to leprechauns,
goblins, menehune,
and other mythical creatures. Irish mythology
has many examples of these mystical folk.
On Midsummer Eve, sacred rites were held on two hills near Lough Gur in County Limerick (the Grange?). One is called Knock Ainé (Knockany, from Cnoc Ainé – 'Ainé's hill'), Ainé or Ane being the name of the ancient Irish goddess who dwells there. She is also called Ainé Cli, Ainé Cliach, Ainé of the light, and Ainé Cliar, the Bright
...Read on at the Ainé Midsummer page in the Scriptorium
Tuesday before the Eve (which is June 23) of the Feast of St John the
Baptist
Snap the Dragon procession, Norwich,
UK (till 1835)
Until 1835, in Norwich, England, the Tuesday before the eve of St John the Baptist featured a procession with the mayor and corporation, and Snap, a glittering green and gold dragon. Snap told jokes as he went and was guarded by four whifflers, armed with drawn swords. At the cathedral the dragon sat on a stone – the dragon's stone – while a service was held. The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 did away with this colourful celebration.
Feast day of 