At the summer solstice the sun reaches the top of its climb and the night is hardly a night at all. Midsummer is the feast of the sun in his strength, kept in the knowledge that he must now decline.
On the longest day in the Welsh Marches the sun is up for nearly seventeen hours, and the sky in the north never grows fully dark. For a few days the sun seems to rise and set at the same points on the horizon. Then, although the hottest weather is still to come, the days begin to shorten.
History and folklore
The summer solstice was marked in these islands long before there was writing to record it. The great stones of Stonehenge are set so that the midsummer sun rises along the axis of the monument, and a number of other ancient sites are aligned in the same way.
In historical times the festival was kept on Midsummer Eve, the twenty-third of June, the eve of the feast of Saint John. It was above all a festival of fire. Bonfires were lit on hills and in market places from Cornwall to Orkney, people danced round them and leapt through them, and blazing brands were carried through the fields to bless the crops. In some places a cartwheel was bound with straw, set alight and sent rolling down a hillside, in plain imitation of the sun beginning his descent. The custom was still being kept in the Vale of Glamorgan in the early nineteenth century.
It was also a night of magic. Herbs gathered on Midsummer Eve were held to be at their strongest, Saint John's wort above all. Fern seed gathered at midnight was said to make its bearer invisible. And it was one of the nights when the fairies were abroad, as Shakespeare's audience well knew.
Midsummer in the Craft
This is the festival of the sun in his glory. In the story of the year the God is at the height of his strength, and the Goddess is the queen of summer, with the whole land in flower about her.
But the Craft does not let the moment pass without noticing what it means. The longest day is also the day on which the light begins to fail. From now the Wheel turns downward towards the harvest and the dark. The rite therefore has two notes in it: rejoicing in the fullness of things, and the knowledge that fullness does not last. Covens that tell of the Oak King and the Holly King have the Holly King win his victory today.
That double note is perhaps the most characteristic thing in the religion. Witches are not asked to pretend that summer is for ever. They are asked to love it properly while it is here.
How our coven keeps it
Midsummer is one of the two Sabbats that we try to keep out of doors, on private ground on the lower slope of the hill.
- We meet in the late evening and watch the sun go down from the hill before the circle is cast.
- A small wheel of plaited straw is burned in the fire.
- We gather Saint John's wort from the bank below the wood, and each of us takes a sprig home to hang over the door.
- Those who can manage it keep the night through, and see the sun rise again a few hours later. There is tea in flasks, and the rest go home to bed without reproach.
Keeping it yourself
- Find out the times of sunrise and sunset on the solstice where you live, and be out of doors for at least one of them.
- Stay outside until the stars come out. In June it takes patience.
- Learn to recognise three wild plants that are in flower.
- Eat your supper in the open air.
- Give some thought to what is at its height in your own life, and be grateful for it now.