Almond Tree Almanac

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MIDSUMMER CUSTOMS - BONFIRES, VIGILS AND DIVINATION
While the date of the solstice varies between 19-23 June, the official calendar ‘Midsummer’ is pegged to 24 June, which is St. John’s Day in the Christian almanac, and to which the earlier Pagan festivities of the solstice were appropriated.

Every ancient religion had its own customs and traditions associated with the summer solstice, and they date back into pre-history. Midsummer was - and still is - an important festival for those who live in the far north. There are many folk customs associated with it, most of which celebrate the light and encourage the power of the Sun with sympathetic magic in the form of bonfires, rolling wheels, circle dances and torchlight processions.

Midsummer fires once blazed all across Europe and North Africa and were believed to have the power to protect the revellers from evil spirits, bad fairies and wicked witches, as well as warding off the powers of blight, disease and death. In England, every village would have its own fire, while in towns and cities the mayor and corporation actually paid for its construction, and the jollities accompanying it were often very elaborate. Large bonfires were lit after sundown, and this was known as 'setting the watch’ to ward off evil spirits. Men and women danced around the fires and often jumped through them for good luck, and afterwards a smouldering branch was passed over the backs of farm animals to preserve them from disease. As late as 1900 at least one old farmer in Somerset would pass a burning branch over and under all his horses and cattle. The Cornish even passed children over the flames to protect them from sickness in the coming year.

Instances of wheel rolling were recorded right into the twentieth century. In the Vale of Glamorgan (Wales) a large cartwheel was swathed with the straw and set alight and the wheel rolled downhill. If the fire went out before it reached the bottom, this indicated a good harvest.

Torches would be lit at the bonfire, and these would be carried inside the milking parlour to keep milk and butter safe from evil magic, then around the fields and growing crops as a protection and blessing. The ashes of the bonfires were scattered in the corn as an aid to fertility. In towns, some of these torchlight processions reached lavish proportions. Garland-bedecked bands of people, sometimes called a marching watch, carried cressets (lanterns on poles) as they wandered from one bonfire to another. Often morris dancers attended them, with players dressed as unicorns, dragons and hobby-horses.

Midsummer was a potent time for magic and divination. The twelfth century Christian mystic Batholomew Iscanus declared ‘He who at the feast of St. John the Baptist does any work of sorcery to seek out the future shall do penance for fifteen days.’ More recently, young girls would use the magic of the season to divine their future husbands. According to one charm a girl should circle three times around the church as midnight strikes saying: H**p seed I sow, H**p seed I hoe,/ Hoping that my true love will come after me and mow. Looking over her shoulder she should see a vision of her lover following her with a scythe.

The raising of the midsummer tree, identical to the maypole, is a midsummer custom found in many areas, including Wales, England and Sweden. It was decorated with ribbons and flowers, and topped by a weatherc**k with gilded feathers, the c**k being a bird of the Sun.

It was the tradition for people watch the Sun go down on St. John’s Eve, then to stay awake for the entire length of the short night and watch the Sun come up again. In the sixteenth century John Stow of London described street parties when people set out tables of food and drink which they invited their neighbours to share, made up their quarrels, lit bonfires and hung their houses with herbs and small lamps.

In Britain it was the custom to visit holy wells just before sunrise on Midsummer’s Day. The well should be approached from the east and walked round sunwise three times. Offerings, such as pins or coins were thrown into the well and its water drunk from a special vessel.

The date for celebrating the moveable summer solstice became fixed on the Day of St John the Baptist, thus enabling the Catholic Church to associate many of the ancient summer solstice customs with his worship. The solstice fires became the fires of St. John, whom Jesus called “a bright and shining light”. The early Christians had a deliberate policy of transforming Pagan celebrations into church occasions. Some of the representations of John are rather strange for a Christian saint. He is often depicted with horns, furry legs and cloven hooves, like a satyr or woodwose or satyr. His shrines too are often of a rather rustic nature, ostensibly because John was fond of wandering in the wilderness. It is possible that John not only took over a Pagan Midsummer festival for his feast day, but also the attributes and shrines of an earlier green god. Other midsummer symbols accumulated around St John, and he was made the patron of shepherds and beekeepers.

In the Middle Ages, Christian mythographers declared that St John was born at the summer solstice at the time of the weakening Sun, announcing his own power would wane with the birth of Christ at the winter solstice, the time of the strengthening Sun, associating them with the oak and holly respectively, perhaps drawing on earlier myth and folklore. The evergreen holly persists through the winter death-time and so was identified with Christ, the white flower emblematic of his purity, the prickles his crown of thorns, and the red berries the drops of his shed blood: “…of all the trees that are in the woods, the holly bears the crown” in the words of the old carol.

© Anna Franklin, The Hearth Witch’s Year, Llewellyn, 2022