Midsummer Lore

Celtic Traditions

Druids, the priestly/professional/diplomatic corps in Celtic countries, celebrated Alban Heruin ("Light of the Shore"). It was midway between the spring Equinox (Alban Eiler; "Light of the Earth") and the fall Equinox (Alban Elfed; "Light of the Water"). "This midsummer festival celebrates the apex of Light, sometimes symbolized in the crowning of the Oak King, God of the waxing year. At his crowning, the Oak King falls to his darker aspect, the Holly King, God of the waning year..." The days following Alban Heruin form the waning part of the year because the days become shorter.

Christian Traditions

After the conversion of Europe to Christianity, the feast day of St. John the Baptist was set as JUN-24. It "is one of the oldest feasts, if not the oldest feast, introduced into both the Greek and Latin liturgies to honor a saint." Curiously, the feast is held on the alleged date of his birth. Other Christian saints' days are observed on the anniversary of their death. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains that St. John was "filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb...[thus his] birth...should be signalized as a day of triumph." His feast day is offset a few days after the summer solstice, just as Christmas is fixed a few days after the winter solstice. "Just as John was the forerunner to Jesus, midsummer forecasts the eventual arrival of the winter solstice" which is around December 21. 

Wiccan Traditions: 

Midsummer is the time when the sun reaches the peak of its power, the earth is green and holds the promise of a bountiful harvest. The Mother Goddess is viewed as heavily pregnant, and the God is at the apex of his manhood and is honored in his guise as the supreme sun.

 Midsummer Correspondences

Hand-Fasting

A marriage ceremony between witches or pagans is known as a Handfasting, from an old custom of formally betrothing couples by binding their hands together with a silken cord. This is where our current term "giving one's hand in marriage" is derived from. Handfasting among modern Witches usually marks the beginning of a formal commitment rather than a betrothal, and may be legally binding if performed by a licensed member of the clergy.

Today's Witches and other Pagans still adhere to many of the ancient handfasting customs. Partners are asked to view their chosen mates as embodiments of the God or Goddess, and often-ritual purification takes place ahead of time so that the couple may align themselves fully with their patron deities. Brides often carry bouquets of flowers or herbs that contain magical or symbolic energies. These might include myrtle or rue for love, wheat for abundance and fertility, ivy for fidelity, primrose for good luck and to garner the blessings of the fairy folk, and rosemary for health and sexual stamina. Both men and women might war circlets of flowers on their heads the way a king or queen en would wear a crown to show their connection. To a higher power and make clear that-at least for now-they are the representatives of the deities on earth.

Extant legal codes from the late Pagan period in Ireland tell us that a couple came into a marriage as equals, each with their own property, which was returned to its original owner if the couple later separated. Token items of value were exchanged as a pledge of faith in a way similar to today's wedding ring. The origins of the simple, round wedding ring are sketchy, but is believed by many to represent the eternity of the union, similar to the Pagan view of the ring as a circle symbolizing, the never-ending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth for the human couple and for the deities in whose image they were wed.

Handfasting were once community events in which the entire clan or village participated. Tokens from the bride were given to unmarried girls as talismans of love in the same way portions of the, wedding cake are taken home today and placed under the pillow to induce prophetic dreams of one's future mate. The earliest wedding cakes were made of grains, symbolic of fertility and abundance. Bread was used in some cultures to bless the couple's home by breaking the loaf. Against the threshold or by burying it near or burning it in the hearth.

A wedding drink popular among the Britons and Celts was mead. Mead is a rich honey-ale combining masculine and feminine elements, and it further underscored the handfasting as a symbolic union of the deities. Our modern term "honeymoon" is believed to derive from a combination of these concepts. The "honey" refers to the principal ingredient of the mead and the "moon" to the approximate period of time that would elapse between Beltane and the time a handfasting could take place.