Midsummer Eve

“ And if the magic flowers of Midsummer Eve thus stand in direct relation to the sun, which many of them resemble in shape and colour, blooming in the meadows like little yellow suns fallen from the blue sky, does it not become probable that the bonfires kindled at the same time are the artificial, as the flowers are the natural, imitations of the great celestial fire then blazing in all its strength? ”

“ Another charm for Midsummer Eve is this:—If a girl wishes to know the profession of her future husband she must melt some lead in an iron spoon between twelve and one o’clock at night, and pour it in a tumbler of cold water, and then watch the shapes it takes, such as a sword would denote that he would be a soldier, an anchor a sailor, etc., etc. Should she wish to know whether she is to be married or not, she must kill two pigeons, take out their hearts and roast them on skewers, also between twelve and one o’clock. ”

“ Gathered on Midsummer Eve, or on Midsummer Day before sunrise, the blossoms are hung on doorways and windows to preserve the house against thunder, witches, and evil spirits; and various healing properties are attributed to the different species of the plant. In the Tyrol they say that if you put St. John's wort in your shoe before sunrise on Midsummer Day you may walk as far as you please without growing weary. In Scotland people carried it about their persons as an amulet against witchcraft. ”

“ If on midsummer-eve a young woman takes off the shift which she has been wearing, and, having washed it, turns it wrong side out, and hangs it in silence over the back of a chair, near the fire, she will see, about midnight, her future husband, who deliberately turns the garment.
If a young lady will, on midsummer-eve, walk backwards into the garden and gather a rose, she has the means of knowing who is to be her husband. The rose must be cautiously sewn up in a paper bag, and put aside in a dark drawer, there to remain until Christmas-day. ”

“ When it grew dusk on Midsummer Eve, old men would hobble away to some height whence they counted the fires and drew a presage from their number.510 “It is the immemorial usage in Penzance, and the neighbouring towns and villages, to kindle bonfires and torches on Midsummer-eve; and on Midsummer-day to hold a fair on Penzance quay, where the country folks assemble from the adjoining parishes in great numbers to make excursions on the water. ”

“ Yet within the memory of many, who would not like to be called old or even aged, on a Midsummer's eve, long before sunset, groups of girls—both gentle and simple—of from ten to twenty years of age, neatly dressed and decked with garlands, wreaths, or chaplets of flowers, would be seen dancing in the streets. ”

“ The observance of Midsummer-Eve by rejoicings, spells, and charms, has continued until within these fifty years, especially in Cornwall, in the North of England, and in Scotland. Bourne, in 1725, tells us, that "on the Eve of St. John Baptist, commonly called Midsummer-Eve, it is usual in the most of country places, and also here and there in towns and cities, for both old and young to meet together, and be merry over a large fire, which is made in the open street. Over this they frequently leap and play at various games, such as running, wrestling, dancing, &c. ”

“ Every large hamlet has its own fire, round which the young people dance in a ring. The old folk notice whether the flames incline to the north or to the south. In the former case the spring will be cold and backward; in the latter mild and genial.681
But the season at which these fire-festivals are most generally held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is, Midsummer Eve (23d June) or Midsummer Day (24th June) . According to a mediæval writer the three great features of this festival were the bonfires, the procession with torches round the fields, and the custom of rolling a wheel. ”

“ Once in the year, or once in a cycle of years, on a certain day, usually Midsummer Day or Midsummer Eve, they come to wash, or to fetch water, in their own form, either compelled or permitted by the terms of the curse that has bound them; and then it is that mortals are admitted to an interview and may render them the service of disenchantment. ”

“ On Midsummer Eve three or four of you must dip your shifts in fair water, then turn them wrong side outwards, and hang them on chairs before the fire, and lay some salt on another chair, and speak not a word. In a short time the likeness of him you are to marry will come and turn your smocks, and drink to you; but if there be any of you will never marry, they will hear a bell, but not the rest. ”

“ There, gazing on the stream, the girl beholds, beside the broken reflections of the tree and the stars, the watery image of her future lord.148 So in Masuren maidens gather nosegays of wild flowers in silence on Midsummer Eve. At the midnight hour each girl takes the nosegay and a glass of water, and when she has spoken certain words she sees her lover mirrored in the water.149
Garlands of flowers of nine sorts gathered at Midsummer and used in divination and medicine. ”

“ Yet curiously enough, though the water-spirits call for human victims on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, water in general is supposed at that season to acquire certain wonderful medicinal virtues, so that he who bathes in it then or drinks of it is not only healed of all his infirmities but will be well and hearty throughout the year. ”

“ There were various other superstitious practices and beliefs associated with Midsummer's Eve—most of them weird and heathenish—which you will read about when you grow older. They belong to a time when people were very ignorant, and therefore very credulous. ”

“ For Midsummer’s day must come once a year even in the coldest lands—and to all of us there must be midsummer once in life—a pause of mingled joy and hope, a living in the blissful present, a foolish dream of its continuance! ”

“ The red midsummer of blazing heat.
When the sun, like an eye that never closes,
Bends on the earth its fervid gaze,
And the winds are still, and the crimson roses
Droop and wither and die in its rays. ”

“ The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,
While the west from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
The wood’s green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days! ”

“ HOW BUNNY BROUGHT GOOD LUCK.
IT was Midsummer's Day, that delightful point toward which the whole year climbs, and from which it slips off like an ebbing wave in the direction of the distant winter. No wonder that superstitious people in old times gave this day to the fairies, for it is the most beautiful day of all. The world seems full of bird-songs, sunshine, and flower-smells then; storm and sorrow appear impossible things; the barest and ugliest spot takes on a brief charm and, for the moment, seems lovely and desirable. ”

“ Your pleasures know no sear:
Your life be flowers and sunshine,
Your days be free from tear.
How happy it made her! And what beautiful things these poets always thought of and said!
"Now, Peaseblossom and Mustard Seed, you may sing that little song that I made for you when we were floating up near the Moon, and then we shall soon have to depart as we have so many calls to make this Midsummer Night."
Neither Willie nor Maude could understand how it could be Midsummer Night, because Midsummer Day was such a long way off—quite six weeks, for this was only yet the month of May. ”

“ If the heathen of ancient Europe celebrated, as we have good reason to believe, the season of Midsummer with a great festival of fire, of which the traces have survived in many places down to our own time, it is natural to suppose that they should have observed with similar rites the corresponding season of Midwinter ”

“ A faint tinge of Christianity has been given to them by naming Midsummer Day after St. John the Baptist, but we cannot doubt that the celebration dates from a time long before the beginning of our era. The summer solstice, or Midsummer Day, is the great turning-point in the sun's career, when, after climbing higher and higher day by day in the sky, the luminary stops and thenceforth retraces his steps down the heavenly road. Such a moment could not but be regarded with anxiety by primitive man so soon as he began to observe and ponder the courses of the great lights across the celestial vault ”

“ They say that spring is the poet's season; but we know better. Spring is all very well for those who have constant leisure; it is good to watch the gradual bursting of early buds; it is good to hear the thrush chant his even-song of love; it is good to rest the eye on the glorious clouds of bloom that seem to float in the orchards. But the midsummer, the gallant midsummer, pranked in manifold splendours, is the true season of poetry for the toilers. ”

“ One can just sit without a fire. Presently, all will be green and gay; for winter is here the season of flowers, and the heaths will cover the country with a vast Turkey carpet. Already the green is appearing where all was brown yesterday. To-day is Good Friday; and if Christmas seemed odd at Midsummer, Easter in autumn seems positively unnatural. ”

“ And Midsummer's coming, and big brother Tom will sit under the tree
With his book, and Mary will beg sweet nosegays of Jack and me.
The worst is, we often start for the seaside about Midsummer Day,
And no one takes care of our gardens whilst we are away. ”

“ The poetry of mere day and of late summer becomes perceptible to mature eyes that have long ceased to be sated, have taken leave of weariness, and cannot now find anything in nature too familiar; eyes which have, indeed, lost sight of the further awe of midsummer daybreak, and no longer see so much of the past in April twilight as they saw when they had no past; but which look freshly at the dailiness of green summer, of early afternoon, of every sky of any form that comes to pass, and of the darkened elms. ”

“ For us midsummer lasts till August is half over, and we utterly refuse to trouble ourselves about equinoxes and solstices and trivialities of that kind. For us it is midsummer while the sun is warm, while the trees hold their green, while the dancing waves fling their blossoms of foam under the darting rays that dazzle us, while the sacred night is soft and warm and the cool airs are wafted like sounds of blessings spoken in the scented darkness. For us the solstice is abolished, and we sturdily refuse to give up our midsummer till the first gleam of yellow comes on the leaves. ”

“ Midsummer Day deemed unlucky and dangerous. The belief that the spirits of the water exact a human life on Midsummer Day may partly explain why that day is regarded by some people as unlucky. At Neuburg, in Baden, people who meet on Midsummer Day bid each other beware.75 Sicilian mothers on that ominous day warn their little sons not to go out of the house, or, if they do go out, not to stray far, not to walk on solitary unfrequented paths, to avoid horses and carriages and persons with firearms, and not to dare to swim; in short they bid them be on their guard at every turn. ”

“ That the dreams of my heart were tender and true.
Silent and calm was the midsummer night,
Our dreams grew more dazzling, as faded the light.
What echoes are filling the solitudes vast,
What sounds are those floating on wings of the blast?
The Spirits of Midnight are chaunting the words,
The wind of the desert is striking the chords.
The meteors of heaven illumine the sky,
And the voice of the pine tree is lost in a sigh.
From nests in the branches, the fond turtledoves
Are warbling to heaven their infinite loves. ”

“ The scorching heat of a midsummer day beat mercilessly upon the earth. Travelers on the dusty roads, toilers in the fields, and others exposed to the rays of the sun, thought yearningly of cooling winds and running streams. ”

“ The afternoon was drawing to a close, and still the rain came down in steady and persevering drops, every drop falling in a decided and obstinate way, as if conscious, though it might be ever so unwelcome, no one had a right to oppose its coming. A rainy day in midsummer is a glorious thing. The grass looks up so green and grateful under the life-giving moisture ”

“ It is not improbable, however, that the Midsummer-Night's Dream was so called because it was to be first represented at Midsummer, or because it was like the plays commonly performed in connection with the festivities of that season. A drama in which fairies were leading characters was in keeping with the time of year when fairies and spirits were supposed to manifest themselves to mortal vision either in vigils or in dreams. ”

“ It is easy to northern people to rise early on Midsummer morning, to see the dew on the grassy edge of the dusty pathway, to notice the fresh shoots among the darker green of the oak and fir in the coppice, and to look over the gate at the shorn meadow, without recollecting that it is the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. ”

“ Who has not experienced the gentle and serene influence of a calm spring evening? and perhaps there is not in the whole circle of the seasons anything more delightful than the exquisite emotion with which a human heart, not hardened by vice, or contaminated by intercourse with the world, is softened into tenderness and a general love for the works of God, by the pure spirit which breathes of holiness, at the close of a fine evening in the month of March or April.
The season of spring is, in fact, the resurrection of nature to life and happiness. ”