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☀️ Happy Midsummer!! 🇸🇪
Today we celebrate Midsummer here in Sweden, Scandinavia – one of our most loved traditions during the year. This Sunday, the Summer Solstice occurs, and in the old peasant society, Midsummer/Summer Solstice was an important turning point: the time before Midsummer was marked by a giving to the soil, while the time after was to reap what the soil gave back to us.
☀️ The holiday symbolizes fertility, prosperity and the brightest day of the year: The Summer Solstice – which occurs on Sunday, and is the longest and brightest day of the year. According to old folk beliefs, the nights around the Summer Solstice and Midsummer are considered to be spiritual and full of wonders, now when nature is the most abundant.
☀️ According to old Scandinavia tradition around this time, women of the household on the farm went out into the fields to wake up the elves dwelling there with rhymes and songs to encourage them to ensure us with growth, and good harvest. This could be the foundation of the still remaining tradition of women wearing a Midsummer wreath. Another old custom is to pick seven different wild flowers, place them under the pillow, and let your dream reveal your future husband.
☀️ Midsummer is an ancient, originally pagan tradition that we mainly celebrate here in Scandinavia and in northern Europe. Scandinavia has ancient traditions based on our different seasons and the position of the sun, like the Summer Solstice (Midsummer) and the first fullmoon after the Winter Solstice (Jul), which was established long before the Christianization of Scandinavia. Other European ethnic groups also celebrate Solstice in similar ways.
☀️ To light a Midsummer fire -or Midsommarblót and bracing a Maypole is one of the older elements of Summer Solstice and Midsummer. It's in worship to the god of honor Freyj, and the earth goddess Gerd, and ofcourse the sun – Sunna. On a rock carving in Gerum, Sweden from the Nordic Bronze Age, there are depictions of how to brace a Maypole and dance around it (picture nr 3).
☀️ The word 'Maypole' is derived from the word 'maja' – an older term meaning "to adorn with leaves" which we do with the Midsummer pole. Even today in Scandinavia, much of the origin of the Old Norse roots still exists in our current traditions – as our pagan ancestors once celebrated them. Happy Midsummer and an honourable Summer Solstice! ⨁
