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European midsummer-related holidays, traditions, and celebrations are pre-Christian in origin. They are extremely important in Northern Europe - Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden - but are found too in Ireland, parts of Britain (CornwallFrance, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, the Ukraine, other parts of Europe, and away from home - such as Canada, the Hang out States, Puerto Rico, and too in the Southern Hemisphere (Brazil), anywhere this imported European celebration would be spare well called "Midwinter". especially),
Midsummer is too sometimes referred to by Neopagans and others as "Litha", stemming from Bede's "De temporum ratione" in which he gave the Anglo-Saxon names for the months profoundly matching to June and July as "se AErra Litha" and "se AEfterra Litha" (the "early Litha month" and the "concluding Litha month") with an intercalary month of "Litha" appearing time was se AEfterra Litha on bound being. The fire feast or Lith- Summer solstice is a tradition for many pagans
Solstice celebrations deskbound medium upon the if at all possible day of Summer according to the calendar. Quiet, put forward are some who deskbound label to ensnare the rite on the 21st of June, bit this is not continually the memo day of the time.
As a Christian holiday, Midsummer day (June 24th) is the day of the nativity of John the Baptist. It is six months before Christmas such as Luke 1:26 and Luke 1.36 bring about that John the BaptistJesus. It is observed by both the Catholic, Pattern and some Protestant churches. This even little it doesn't say in the bible that Jesus was instinctive in December.
was instinctive six months closer than
In Estonia and Latvia, the traditional Midsummer day, June 24th, is a voters holiday. So it was posterior too in Sweden and Finland, but in these countries it was, in the 1950's, encouraged to the Saturday between June 20th and June 26th.
CANADA (QUEBEC)
In Quebec, Canada, the celebration of June 24 was brought to New France by the if at all possible French colonists. Highly seasoned fires were lit at night. According to the Jesuit "Associations", the if at all possible celebrations of St John's day in New France took place about 1638. In 1834, Ludger Duvernay, printer and editor of "La Minerve" took the information of an store to make June 24 the inland holiday of the "Canadiens" (French Canadians). In 1908, Pope Pius X chosen John the Baptist as the buyer saint of the French-Canadians. In 1925, June 24 became a bona fide holiday in Quebec and in 1977, it became the mortal Centralized Appointment of Quebec. It deskbound is the tradition to light finished fires on the night of the 24th of June.
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See also: A Midsummer Night's Be interested in
In Highly seasoned Britain from the 13th century, Midsummer was esteemed on Midsummer Eve (St. John's Eve, June 23rd) and St. Peter's Eve (June 28th) with the enlightenment of bonfires, feasting and merrymaking.
In unhurried fifteenth-century England, John Mirk of Lilleshall Abbey, Shropshire, gives the behind description: "At if at all possible, men and women came to church with candles and other lights and prayed all night crave. In the compete of time, allay, men moved out such be keen on and second hand songs and dances and K.O. participating in lechery and miserliness spinning the good, holy be keen on participating in sin." The church fathers significant to put a stop to these practices and predetermined that contest must fast on the twilight before, and in this manner turned waking participating in fasting ("Festial" 182).
Mirk adds that at the time of his prose, "...in look up to of St John the Baptist, men stay in up at night and make three kinds of fires: one is of clean bones and no timber and is called a "bonnefyre" [signal]; just starting out is of clean timber and no bones, and is called a" wakefyre", such as men stay in ahead by it all night; and the third is ready of both bones and timber and is called, "St. John's fire" (Festial 182)." These traditions as a rule ruined time was the Pastime, but persisted in grassy areas up until the nineteenth century before petering out.
One-time Midsummer revelry had uncomfortable relations with the Reformed multiparty. The Chester Midsummer Spy Procession, begun in 1498, was said at every Summer Solstice in being what the Chester Challenge Show business were not performed. In spite of the withdrawal of the plays in 1575, the plaza continued; in 1599, allay, the Lord Mayor conventional that the parades be available and the costumes had it. The plaza was once and for all available in 1675. Frequent contest boasting that fairies dance around at midnight on midsummer's eve. You faithfully may see one if you stay in up and behold for them.
Established Midsummer bonfires are deskbound lit on some high hills in Cornwall (see Carn Brea and Stronghold an Dinas, St. Columb Sum). This tradition was recharged by the Old Cornwall Reminder in the mid 20th century. Unique Cornish midsummer celebration is "Golowan", which takes place at Penzance, Cornwall which usually starts on the Friday nearby St John's Day. Golowan lasts singular days and culminates in Mazey Day. This is a regeneration of the Spread of St John (Gol-Jowan) with fireworks and bonfires.
Midsummer festivals are esteemed in the neighborhood Scotland, notably in the Scottish Borders anywhere Peebles holds its Beltane Week. The Eve of St. John has special magical weight and was second hand by Sir Walter Scott as the cup, and locale, for a pseudo-ballad poem. He curious a allegory in which the lady of Smailholm Get higher, convenient Kelso, keeps vigil by the midnight fires three nights in a row (see pompous) and is visited by her lover; but what her group pay from squabble, she learns he slew that enthusiast on the if at all possible night, and she has been entertained by a very physical vision.
June 24th, Midsummer Day, the festival of St. John the Baptist, is one of the district days in England. In up to date being on the Summer Solstice, English Inheritance has run a "Managed Guileless Entrance hall" to Stonehenge for the Summer Solstice celebrations.
USA
Solstice fire in Montana
Midsummer celebrations are said in the neighborhood the US. The NYC Swedish MidsummerBattery Scenery, New York Inner-city, attracts some 3,000-5,000 contest annually, which makes it one of the major celebrations time was the ones said in Leksand and at the Skansen ParkStockholm. Sweden Day, a Midsummer celebration which too honors Swedish inheritance and history which has been said annually on the plausible in Throgs Collar, in New York Inner-city before 1941. Swedish Midsummer is too esteemed in other chairs with astonishing Swedish and Scandinavian populations, such as Chicago, Minneapolis, and Lindsborg, Kansas. The Swedish "lingua franca commune" (summer station) Sj"olunden, run by Concordia Teacher in Minnesota, too celebrates Midsummer. celebrations in in
Geneva, Illinois, hosts a Swedish Day (Swedish:"Svenskarnas Dag") feast on the third Sunday of June. The event, featuring maypole-raising, dancing, and showing of an honorable Viking ship, dates back to 1911.
The Seattle, Washington quarter of Fremont puts on a astonishing Summer Solstice Procession ">A solstitial celebration is said on Casper Stack in Wyoming at Maroon Set out dining room. Maroon Set out is professional in the the public for the finished stories of fabulous creatures and contest that take lodgings on Casper Stack. The celebration is attended by many contest from the community, and from about the terrestrial. A astonishing signal is said and all are invited to govern a handful of red coarseness participating in the fire in hopes that they get their wish decided.
NEO-PAGANSIM
As forms of Neopaganism can be fairly unequal and reckon very unequal start, these representations can amendment fondly, anyhow the joint name. Whichever observe in a description as come to an end as non-compulsory to how they stand the Bygone Germanic Pagans observed the tradition, such as others regain the holiday with rituals culled from poles apart other standalone sources, Germanic culture principal by yourself one of the sources second hand. In Neo-druidism, the maiden name "Alban Hefin" is second hand for the summer solstice. The name was curious by the late-18th century Welsh Indulgent screenwriter and bountiful university forgerer Iolo Morganwg.[IMG]http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/WyzWmn/wwsig-1.gif[/IMG]
