And a supersticious solstice to all!

There are two days in a year when a big part of the world gets the itch to light humongous piles of wood and debris on fire. Now every Finn reading this will go "Midsummer whoooooo!" and dash to the car to drive to the summer cabin. Of course, only a rare few Finns will read this before midsummer's already long gone, because most of them are already at the cabins.

Midsummer is indeed the first date to light the fires, which - if you discount it being awesome - seems a bit foolish: it's, especially in Finland, the day when the sun almost (or literally) never sets. And yet we feel the unquenchable urge to put huge bonfires to the torch. The second date for lighting the fires happens, would you have it, on another solstice: the winter solstice.

These dates are, on the calendar, as far from each other as you can get two days to be, and are otherwise diametrically opposed as well, the summer solstice marking the highest point of the sun, the longest day of the year, and the winter solstice being the exact opposite of this. The supersticions surrounding these two days are, however, very specifically linked, especially when it comes to the bonfires.

The human penchant for pyromania on these two specific dates comes from old, old supersticion. Nowadays christianity and before that every other "pagan" belief has nicked the day from the previous one, dating back as far as we might care to follow. Somehow fire has been a symbol of protection and safety, for the belief behind these blazing fires seem to be that evil spirits are disheartened and driven off by the flames.

These two days have been chosen because the loss of light has been viewed as the time for these evil beings. The summer and winter solstice mark the two days that act as kind of lodestones to the whole thing. On midsummer, as the light begins to fade, the malign spirits are strong as their power begins to rise anew, whereas midwinter finds them at the peak of their power and the fires must be burned to drive them off.

These are not the only supersticions that have survived to our day surrounding midsummer: healing herbs, cantrip spells and divination are all things that are closely linked to midsummer in our folklore. I'm not going to delve into those here, or I'll be writing this still when midsummer's already long past. Here are some sights from last year's midsummer, may it be as pretty this time around. A supersticious solstice to all!