topic Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer in Community Chat

Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 15:23:25 GMT

The Birth of St. John the Baptist falls around the summer solstice, and is known as the "summer Christmas." Picnics and bonfires on the eve of the feast are traditional, as Florence Berger explains. She also introduces some other customs from around the world for this feast day, including the hymn "Ut queant laxis."

DIRECTIONS

June 24 is one of the oldest of the Church feasts. It is the birthday celebration of St. John the Baptist, and is sometimes called "summer Christmas." On the eve of the feast, great bonfires were once lighted as a symbol of "the burning and brilliant" light, St. John, who pointed out Christ in this world of darkness. The solstice fires had been pagan, but now they were blessed by the Church in John's honor. There are actual blessings for the bonfire in the Roman liturgy. Magical and superstitious elements of food and drink were forgotten, and we were encouraged to have great picnic feasts out-of-doors around the blazing logs. The outdoor grill, so popular in our own back yards, was once less selfish and more communal. We feasted as many neighbors and not as exclusive individuals.

There are all sorts of special foods used on the feast day of St. John. Each country makes a contribution to the joy and festivity. There is no world-fellowship quite so genuine as the mystical body of Christ celebrating. The St. John's menu really is quite international. Wynkyn de Worde of old England cooked a wonderful soup for the occasion in the manner of his ancestors. In Mexico this is a day for bathing, singing, dancing and eating. Great hampers of chicken tamales and stuffed peppers are carried to the swimming parties. In Sweden salmon and new potatoes were the appropriate entree and strawberries were the dessert which was first choice. It was Latvia, however, which made a national holiday of this feast, and each man or boy with St. John's name was honored. Every house had open house, and the table was set with cold cuts served with grated wild horseradish, bread, butter, honey and sweet beer.

Sweet beer was a sort of home brew which always was drunk on the great Latvian festivals. Barley and rye were moistened and germinated. The germination was then checked by complete drying; the resulting malted grain was roasted in an oven while hot water and hops were added. The brew was placed in barrels and strained through layers of straw. You can see how much trouble people will go to in order to celebrate. Naturally we prefer to substitute American beer for Latvian home brew.

Singing groups in the northern countries would go from door to door much like Christmas carolers only on this day they sang:

"Ut queant laxis resonare fibris (Do-re) Mira gestorum famuli tuorum (Mi-fa) Solve poluti labei reatum (Sol-la) Sancte Johannes." (Si)
"As thy servants sing with full voice the marvels of thy works, do thou purify their sinful lips Saint John." And as the hymn mounted the scale from Do to Si, the housewife of Latvia would rush to the door with her hands full of bread and cheese while her husband stood in the background holding a mug of beer with which to lure in the singers. There was also a special cheese called John Siers or Saint John cheese. I believe it was made of goats' milk like the brown cheese of Norway.
This idea of using bread and cheese as an attraction to entice guests into your house was employed as late at 1826 in Yorkshire, England. There, on St. John's eve, the newcomers in a parish placed small tables holding bread and cheese and beer outside their doors. (They probably served the famous Wensleydale cheese, best of all English cheese. Wensleydale cheese is a double cream cheese, like Stilton, which grows "blue" when ripe. It is made only from June to September.) Passersby were thus invited to eat at the stranger's door, and at the proper moment that door would open with a "come in" invitation. In this way, no new resident was a stranger for very long. There is much to be said for the custom because we have known how it is to live in a parish of strange names and faces. With all the moving days which we have here in America, we could use the bread and cheese lure for friendship several times a year in some families.

Last year in our home we celebrated St. John's Day in games and plays and dances in front of the bonfire. It was fun to tell stories of ghosts and witches — all of whom would keep respectful distances from St. John's light. Mary and Ann gathered St. John's herbs from field and garden, and I told how they had been used as medicines, charms or food. Most of the yellow flowers once belonging to the cult of Balder, the sun god, are now St. John's flowers. It is amazing to learn how many flowers are dedicated to this beloved saint.

When the flames had died down to glowing embers, we brought out the long-handled griddle and made sweet pancakes. You seldom think of pancakes at a grill, but they are excellent. The batter is easy to carry to a picnic in a Mason jar. The recipe we used was one from Finland where pancakes are the proper traditional supper on St. John's eve.

Served with ripe red raspberries, fresh from the garden, Finnish Pancakes are sure to make your bonfire party a success.

This recipe is from Finland where pancakes are the proper traditional supper for the eve of the Birth of St. John the Baptist, June 24. A bonfire on "St. John's Eve" is a another tradition in many countries. This batter can be mixed ahead and carried in Mason jar. As the flames are just glowing embers, use a long-handled griddle to make your sweet pancakes. Served with fresh, ripe red raspberries, these Finnish Pancakes are sure to make your bonfire a success.

DIRECTIONS

Beat salt and sugar with eggs. Add milk and flour alternately. Stir in butter. Fry on hot griddle. Serve with ripe red raspberries or berries of your choice.

INGREDIENTS

2 beaten eggs
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 cups milk
1-1/2 cups sifted flour
1 Tablespoon melted butter

Details

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 15:25:21 GMT

around the World

Latvian girls in traditional Midsummer dress | © Dace Kiršpile /Flickr

Lauren Cocking

Northern England Writer

Updated: 8 June 2018

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The summer solstice, otherwise known as midsummer, marks both the longest day and the shortest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, and is technically the official start of summer. It’s also one of Europe’s most celebrated and spiritual evenings, which has long been associated with both the Christian St. John the Baptist, as well as a more ancient, Pagan ritual. However, it’s not just Europe that revels in longer days, so we’ve also featured many global locations on this rundown of the top summer solstice traditions.

Sweden

Moving back to Europe, Sweden is surely the unrivalled champion of midsummer celebrations. Their ‘Midsommarstång’ festivities, marked by decadent indulgence and rooted in paganism, are some of the most important in this Scandinavian country’s calendar, and which unite Swedes of all ages. Traditional foods such as pickled herring, salmon, and potatoes are enjoyed by flower-wreath-wearing revelers, and maypole and folk dances – such as the Små grodorna – take center stage. It’s even said that if unmarried girls place seven flowers under their pillow on midsummer, they’ll dream of their future husband.

A child in Sweden celebrating the Solstice

Other Nordic countries

Is it unfair to lump Norway, Finland and Iceland under one entry? Probably. However, these three Nordic countries do share some remarkable similarities when it comes to celebrating the summer solstice. In Norway, enormous barrel bonfires are popular, and Finland (whose ‘juhannus’ midsummer festivities were formerly based on the god Ukko before being John the Baptist-ized) similarly let loose to celebrate several extra hours of light by also crafting huge bonfires. Iceland, on the other hand, celebrates their 21 hours of daylight by throwing a huge three-day Secret Solstice Midnight Sun Music Festival.

Lakeside bonfires are typical in Norway

UK & Ireland

It’s not surprising that the country in which Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is based has some pretty typical summer solstice celebrations, especially given the UK’s pagan past. Festivities in pre-Christian times focused on fairies, unicorns and other suitably mystical creatures, until Christianity duly stamped these traditions out. Nowadays, certain areas are reviving these processions and plays, while bonfires are still typical in Cornwall and Ireland. Naturally, Stonehenge sees many druids and pagans coming to witness the perfectly aligned sunrise, too.

Stonehenge

Latvia

Latvia takes a leaf (no pun intended) out of Sweden’s flower-wreath-wearing book at midsummer, also favoring the use of these now festival-friendly pieces of floral headwear for women and leafier versions for men. Known as Jāņi (after John the Baptist), this special annual event is typically accompanied by plenty of parties, cheese, and beer, as well as some possibly ill-advised leaping over the bonfires that are kept burning all night long. Traditional folk songs and cars decorated with branches sometimes make an appearance, too.

Latvian girls in traditional Midsummer dress

Spain

Bonfires and firework displays are popular in Spain when it comes to celebrating midsummer, and special beacons are ritualistically lit throughout the Pyrenees, in Spain, Andorra, and France. Midsummer in that region is tied to feelings of belonging, and also marks a transition into adulthood for many adolescents. However, Spain in particular seems to celebrate more of a mishmash between Christian culture and pagan ritual. The midsummer Festival of St. Joan festivities, particularly in Barcelona, Menorca, and other Catalan-speaking regions, prove especially popular.

Midsummer fireworks in Catalunya, Spain

U.S.A.

The U.S.A. is vast, and there are many different summer solstice celebrations which take place there on an annual basis. However, some of the most well-known include Times Square’s day-long yoga event which sees hundreds of yoga fiends join together to practice the activity throughout the day. Alternatively, head to the zany Santa Barbara Summer Solstice parade which has a different theme year on year, or celebrate like a Swede in Battery Park, N.Y.C. instead.

Stretch and sweat your way into summer with yoga in Times Square

Russia & Ukraine

Midsummer celebrations in Russia and Ukraine are remarkably similar to, and share many likenesses with, other European festivities, particularly the Latvian penchant for jumping over burning bonfires, although they also embrace skinny dipping. Other water-based activities common over the summer solstice include floating flower garlands in water and making predictions based on their movements. Known as Kupala Night or Ivan’s Day in Russia and Ukraine, it has roots in pagan fertility festivals, but a name inspired by the Russian name for John the Baptist.

A Russian Solstice fire dance

Austria

Just as communities in the Pyrenees celebrate midsummer by lighting beacons, Austria comes together to light hundreds of mountain fires to mark this magical time. Stemming from a medieval tradition, it’s thought that these fires were ways to worship the earth. Nowadays, revelers can make use of cable car systems to get a bird’s eye view of the tradition, which is particularly popular in the Wilder Kaiser region of Tyrol, or simply head to Lake Achensee for a summer solstice cruise.

Midsummer bonfires across Austria

China

While many of the aforementioned midsummer festivities are well-known around the globe, arguably the most controversial is China’s Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, which is better known as the Yulin Dog Meat Festival. (It’s for obvious reasons that the fairly unassuming lychee aspect of this celebration is often forgotten about.) Held annually in Guangxi, it’s sparked outrage since it began in 2009, and this year the sale of dog meat both at the festival and throughout China actually looks set to be banned. Even so, the Yulin Dog Meat Festival isn’t China’s only midsummer tradition, with noodles typically being eaten in Shandong and Beijing during this period, and dragon boat races being held in Shaoxing, Zhejiang.

Lychees are understandably the least controversial aspect of Midsummer in China

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 15:28:56 GMT

(CNN) — In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice has a history of stirring libidos, and it's no wonder.

The longest day of the year tends to kick off the start of the summer season and with it, the harvest. So it should come as no surprise that the solstice is linked to fertility -- both of the vegetal and human variety -- in destinations around the world.

"A lot of children are born nine months after Midsummer in Sweden," says Jan-Öjvind Swahn, a Swedish ethnologist and the author of several books on the subject.

Midsummer is the Scandinavian holiday celebrating the summer solstice, which in 2019 falls on Friday, June 21. Swedish traditions include dancing around a maypole -- a symbol which some view as phallic -- and feasting on herring and copious amounts of vodka.

"Drinking is the most typical Midsummer tradition. There are historical pictures of people drinking to the point where they can't go on anymore," says Swahn. While the libations have a hand in the subsequent baby boom, Swahn points out that even without the booze, Midsummer is a time rich in romantic ritual.

"There used to be a tradition among unmarried girls, where if they ate something very salty during Midsummer, or else collected several different kinds of flowers and put these under their pillow when they slept, they would dream of their future husbands," he says.

Traditions in Greece

There is a similar mythology about dreaming of one's future spouse in parts of Greece. There, as in many European countries, the pagan solstice got co-opted by Christianity and rebranded as St. John's Day. Still, in many villages in the country's north, the ancient rites are still celebrated.

One of the oldest rituals is called Klidonas, and it involves local virgins gathering water from the sea. The village's unmarried women all place a personal belonging in the pot and leave it under a fig tree overnight, where -- folklore has it -- the magic of the day imbues the objects with prophetic powers, and the girls in question dream of their future husbands.

The next day, all the women in the village gather, and take turns pulling out objects and reciting rhyming couplets that are meant to predict the romantic fortunes of the item's owner. These days, however, the festival is more an excuse for the community of women to exchange bawdy jokes.

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 15:39:43 GMT

Summer solstice traditions from around the world

From rock concerts to Stonehenge, people in the northern hemisphere have been celebrating the longest day of the year for centuries.

2 Minute Read

By National Geographic Staff

PUBLISHED June 20, 2019

The summer solstice—also called midsummer—marks the moment when the North Pole is angled more toward the sun than on any other day of the year, resulting in the longest period of sunlight of the year for the top half of the planet. Long seen as signifying growth and life, the astronomical event has an ancient history of being recognized as a special event in the calendar. As such, many cultures around the world have developed celebrations and rituals to coincide with it.

Ancient Egyptians aligned the Great Pyramids so that the sun, when viewed from the Sphinx, sets precisely between two of the pyramids on the summer solstice.

In a long-buried Mayan city in Guatemala, archaeologists have discovered the remains of an astronomical observatory in which the buildings were designed to align with the sun during the solstices. During such times, the city's populace gathered at the observatory to watch as their king appeared to command the heavens.

Dragon Boat Races Celebrate China's Ancient Past Near the summer solstice, communities across China gather to race boats, many adorned with painted carvings of dragons.

And perhaps most famously, Stonehenge in the United Kingdom has been associated with the winter and summer solstices for about 5,000 years. Observers in the center of the standing stones can still watch the summer solstice sunrise over the Heel Stone, which stands just outside the main ring of Stonehenge.

Celebrating the light

At high noon on the summer solstice, the sun appears at its highest point in the sky—its most directly overhead position—in the Northern Hemisphere. And the amount of daylight increases the farther north you go.

Some countries plan for this prolonged sunlight with events that last through the night. In Iceland, a country so far north it abuts the Arctic Circle, the Secret Solstice Music Festival avails itself of three straight days of midnight sun.

What is a Solstice? What is the definition of a solstice, and when do they happen? Is the winter solstice always the first day of winter? Find out what causes these bi-annual astronomical events, as well as how they bring about the shortest and longest days of the year.

Similarly, Fairbanks, Alaska, has been taking advantage of the solstice with a late-night baseball game for more than 100 years. The first Midnight Sun Game, held in 1906, began as a bet between two local bars shortly after a building fire gutted downtown Fairbanks, according to Tom Dennis, the general manager of the Alaska Goldpanners baseball team, which has been hosting the game since 1960.

Every year, a different team—usually from out of state—is invited to participate in the symbolic event. The game typically begins around 10:30 p.m., continues straight through midnight, and often lasts as late as 2 a.m.

The solstice today

As one moves closer to the equator, the solstice becomes a veritable nonevent—both the summer and winter solstices have little effect on the days there. And thanks to modern technology and busy lives, many people in the mid-latitudes might not even notice the uniqueness of the solstice.

People who "really pay attention to what's going on outside on a regular basis are the neo-pagans in America and farmers, because it's important for their growing and harvest seasons," says Jarita Holbrook, formerly a cultural astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

But no matter if you’re a farmer, baseball player, neo-pagan, or otherwise, enjoy the few extra minutes of sunshine on this longest day of the year.

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

SunValley — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 17:06:46 GMT

@cherry thank you for this interesting post! Celebration traditions are so wonderful.

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 17:42:45 GMT

I have read oodles of stuff about this celebration..The feast of St John the Baptist is today. He comes at the brightest part of the church calendar, as the days wind down getting darker, until Christmas , and Christ comes at the darkest time of the year( the Light of the World)

St John says He must increase , I must decrease, hence the shortening of the days. St John was about 6 months older than Christ, we know this from scripture..Hence Christ is born 6 months after St John.

I will see if I can find more @SunValley

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

JudyL — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 17:30:27 GMT

@cherry yes, thank you for such an interesting post. I loved reading it. Will read more later when I'm not at work. LOL

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 17:33:11 GMT

Brazil, this day is known as Diário de Sáo Joáo (Saint John's Day). The festivities are set off in the villages and countryside by the Fogueira de Sáo Joáo (bonfire) on St. John's eve. Families and friends eat traditional foods around the fire while younger folks jump over the fire and firecrackers are exploded. The day is primarily a festival for children, who save up months in advance to purchase fireworks to set off for the day. In cities this is a day for parties and dances, with the urban dwellers dressing up in rural costumes.
St. John is the protector of lovers, so for fun, young country girls in Brazil will roll up scraps of paper, each bearing a name of a single girl and place them into a bowl of water. The first one which unfolds indicates the girl who will marry first.

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 17:39:19 GMT

Why we celebrate the summer solstice

By Maria Konnikova on June 21, 2013

Today, the Northern Hemisphere celebrates the summer solstice, the longest day of the calendar year (happy winter solstice to the Southern Hemisphere!). Around 1:00AM, the sun was directly above the Tropic of Cancer—and though I was fast asleep at that precise moment, along with most of my fellow East Coasters, I probably woke up earlier than I normally would, and will go to sleep far later. That’s the beauty of the longest day of the year.

But while the day is, technically speaking, an astronomical occasion, its historical and cultural significance extends far beyond the relative length of the daylight. The word solstice itself comes from the Latin, from sol (sun) and stare or sistere (to stand or stop), and its celebration dates back to ancient pre-Christian tradition. For the Greeks, it would, according to some calendars, mark the start of the new year—and the month-long countdown toward the Olympics. It was, too, often the annual occasion for the festival of Kronia, to honor the god Cronus, the patron of agriculture. The day was marked not only by the typical feasts and games, but by an even more remarkable occurrence: for once, slaves could participate in the festivities along with the freemen, joined in equality for a single day.

For the Romans, the solstice was the occasion for another unique exception to everyday life: on the first day of the festival of Vestalia, married women could, for one day only, enter the temples of the vestal virgins. There, they would be allowed to make offerings to Vesta, the goddess of hearth and home.

Many Native American tribes celebrated the longest day of the year with a Sun Dance, while the Mayas and Aztecs used the day as a marker by which to build many of their central structures, so that the buildings would align perfectly with the shadows of the two solstices, summer and winter. In many European pagan traditions, the solstice was called Litha, a day to balance the elements of fire and water, while for the druids, it was, simply, midsummer, a night and day with properties like no other. According to tradition, certain plants—St. John’s wort, roses, rue, verbena, and the like—acquired properties on the year’s shortest night that they wouldn’t have if picked at any other time. And on this evening, if you were very lucky, you might even catch a glimpse of faeries, who favored midsummer to reveal themselves to the common folk. (Rub fern seeds on your eyelids at midnight’s stroke if you want to spy one—but if you do, be sure to come equipped with rue, lest the pixies lead you astray). It’s only too clear why Shakespeare set his famous comedy during the magic of midsummer’s evening.

The day also figures in religious calendars. With the rise of Christianity and accompanying threat to pagan traditions, the summer solstice became celebrated in many parts of Europe as the day of St. John the Baptist—St. John’s Eve in Denmark, the Feast of St. John in France, the festival of St. John the Baptist in Spain, Ivan Kupala Day in Russia. The Festival of Ivanje in Croatia. In Jewish tradition, it’s known as Tekufat Tammuz, the solstice of the month Tammuz, and legend has it that, on this particular day, no one has a shadow.

But perhaps my favorite story of the solstice comes from the East, from Chinese legend. While the day itself is a celebration of yin, earth, and femininity (in contrast to the winter celebration of yang), there is a separate tradition that I find oddly moving: that of the Duanwu, the Dragon Boast Festival. While Duanwu is always held around the solstice, it does not always fall on the actual astronomical date. Instead, it takes places on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Why the strange timing?

The origins of Duanwu are uncertain. But my favorite story is this: it is the exact day on which the poet Qu Yuan committed suicide, in 278 BC. Qu was a descendant of the Chu royal family and rose to prominence both for his lyrical verse and his ministerial prowess (he was both Confucian scholar and, at one time, a minister of the Chu State). When the Chu Kingdom fell to the Qin, Qu drowned himself in despair in the Miluo River. But that’s not where the story ends. Qu was so well-loved—and his display of patriotism so moving—that the townspeople took to their boats in the hopes of saving him, or at least recovering his corpse. When that failed, they decided to throw rice, wrapped in bamboo and reeds, into the river to feed the fish, in the hope that the fish would then leave Qu’s body alone. Each year, on the anniversary of his death, they would repeat the ritual. And so, Duanwu was born—except today, instead of throwing the bamboo-wrapped glutinous rice (called zongzi) into the water, you eat it yourself (and the wrappers no longer contain simply rice; depending on the variation, zongzi can have pork, egg yolk, chestnuts, mushrooms, cabbage, chicken, red bean, and on and on).

There are myriad traditions, myriad histories, myriad reasons to choose from when you celebrate the sun’s longest daytime path. But at the end, we may not need any of them. Maybe, the reason we want to commemorate the day is much more prosaic—and fundamental—than any story or legend will ever be. On this day, we may, quite simply, be the happiest we’ve been in a long time.

Psychologists have long suspected a link between our level of happiness and the amount of sunlight in the day, and even though much of the data has been self-reported and anecdotal (it’s challenging, though not impossible, to run a controlled study with adequate data that spans an entire year), there have been some experimental results that suggest that, comparatively speaking, individuals suffers greater levels of depression when daylight decreases. That is, if you move someone to a more northern latitude (so, one where the days are relatively shorter), he is more likely to suffer an increase in symptoms of anxiety; move him to a more southern latitude, and the opposite is the case. Still, until relatively recently, data collection has hampered a more systematic approach to the question.

Enter social media. In 2011, a group of researchers decided to look at the tweets of some 2.4 million people from all over the world, for a period that ranged from February 2008 to January 2010, selecting 400 tweets at random for each individual. They wanted to see if emotional content varied as a function of the time of day, the day of the week, and the amount of actual daylight (i.e., the season). They found meaningful differences on all fronts—but most significantly for this discussion, they discovered that what mattered most when it came to the time of the year was not the absolute amount of daylight but the relative change in that daylight. That is, was the day, relatively speaking, longer or shorter than the day that came before? When the change in daylight was positive (i.e., in the approach to the summer solstice), people expressed significantly higher positive affect than they did when that change was negative (i.e., approaching the winter solstice).

By the time the solstice rolls around, then, we’ve been on a happiness up-slope for half the year—a build up of positivity if ever there were. No wonder the urge to celebrate runs high. And an even greater reason: it’s all downhill from here on out, relatively speaking – at least for the next six months.

It seems somehow wrong, though, to end such a day on a down note. Better perhaps to turn back to ancient traditions, and see if we can’t increase our luck for the months to come, on this most magical day of midsummer. The options are many. You can light a bonfire—and jump over it if you dare. Succeed, and you may find yourself finding your true love. You can leave a piece of gold jewelry in the sunlight, and wait while it soaks in its power. Wear the jewelry later, and you may find that power transferred to your own life in the coming year. I, for one, may have missed my window. As I found out earlier today, I would have done well to have spent the last night keeping wakeful watch amidst a circle of standing stones (how sad that Stonehenge is so far from New York). Legend has it, such a stunt could kill me or drive me mad—but if it didn’t, would turn me into a great bard, or storyteller.

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 17:58:00 GMT

When is St. John's Day?

Always celebrated on 24th June, this holiday celebrates the birthday of St. John the Baptist.

In the Gospel of Luke, certain verses imply that John the Baptist was born six months earlier than Jesus. And since it has become a tradition that Jesus was born on 25th December (Christmas), Midsummer day, being six months before was taken to be the feast day of St. John the Baptist.

History of St. John's Day

Usually, a saint's feast day is celebrated on the day that the saint died. St. John along with the Virgin Mary are the only two saints whose birthdays are celebrated.

St. John's death (29th August) is also marked by Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

The feast day of Saint John the Baptist was a popular feast day in many European countries. One reason for this was that it's timing coincided nicely with much older pagan holidays that celebrated the summer solstice. It is still celebrated as a religious feast day in several countries, such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and has echos in other holidays such as the Swiss National Day - a central theme in the celebrations is the lighting of bonfires.

It was thought that the Summer solstice was a time when spirits roamed freely, so bonfires were lit to ward off and potect from the evil spirits. Later on, the solstice was seen as a time when witches or even dragons needed to be kept at bay with a bonfire.

John the Baptist is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus by wading into the water with Jesus from the eastern bank of the river.

John is probably best known for fortelling of the messiah, which in the New Testament predicted the coming of Jesus.

According to the Gospel of Mark, John is imprisoned by Herod for denouncing Herod's incestuous marriage. John condemned Herod for marrying Herodias (his niece) in violation of Old Testament Law. After Herodias's daughter Salome has danced before Herod, he grants her a favour. Herodias tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, which is delivered to her on a plate.

St. John the Baptist is the patron Saint of Turin.

His feast day is also celebrated in Quebec as the Fete Nationale du Quebec.

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:07:59 GMT

This is too long to bring over so I will provide a link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John%27s_Eve

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

alarmclock — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:29:43 GMT

Is this like a Wicker Man thing?

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:48:13 GMT

No, I have no idea what a wicker man is

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

hennypenny — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 21:48:34 GMT

@cherry , Thank you for all the interesting information.I didn't know about St. John. Also didn't know how each country celebrated.

Here in Santa Barbara it is a big shindig. We have a fabulous parade and then a two day celebration in a park downtown.

It is such fun. It started simply many years ago with a few old hippies nude with body painting. Can't get away with that now, but it is still such fun.

All home grown and fun zany costumes, family, friends, kids and old folks. It has become a big thing.

We are all one family on this crazy planet.

Re: Bonfire Night Traditions Midsummer

cherry — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 22:03:44 GMT

@hennypenny What fun..here are some of the festivities around the world

Ireland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svHjwpfrxY8

Spain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q69QtZZGvxM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeyP1_uI32I

Frapata, Diministra, Kefalonia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q69QtZZGvxM

Britain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axJ2zcEfyxo

Porto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz1NefkuqVU

Philippines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiNjM9mQnm4