Greetings fellow story lovers, this is Casimir back once again with a new article on folklore and history from around the world. It is summer — the sun is bright, the birds are singing, and swarms of insects are buzzing. So, at the time of writing this article, I am actually on time for the topic. As I have spoken about both the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, today I’ll be talking about Midsummer and other Aestival rights. (I’d actually like to start with something I just learned recently. Vernal is to Spring, Aestival is to Summer, Autumnal is to Fall, and Brumal is to winter. Just a fun bit of vocabulary that I learned, and plan to use to sound smarter than Mynogan.)
Now when it comes to the celebration of midsummer and the summer solstice, it is surprisingly, at least to me, a very European saturated Holiday. However, there are a few analogous holidays from other non-European countries that coincide with Midsummer. I am however, going to start with the Skald’s Circle’s bread and butter — Midsummer, and therefore, the Summer or Aestival Solstice are about the celebration of life, love, and fertility.
One of the most well known Midsummer traditions is one that is also associated with the month of May and Mayday. It is the Maypole, which is a traditional symbol of fertility. This symbol can be traced back far into Germanic and Nordic history as the Midsommarstang. It is a commonly held belief, though difficult to provide historical proof to, that Midsummer was also a time that worship was provided to Freya and Freyr, two of the Norse deities of fertility. It is entirely possible that this is true, however, in my research for this month’s article I was unable to find anything on that unfortunately. Of course there are a plethora of midsummer fun to be had in the Nordic countries still, festivals, dancing, bonfires. These are all rather mundane though. However, while midsummer has been heavily Christianized, there are elements of the older beliefs still in Midsummer traditions. Some examples of this are picking seven different flowers and placing them under one’s pillow to divine one’s future spouse; or that the wreaths saved from Midsummer would be kept alive long enough to stay till winter.
I am the one writing this article, so I am certain that you know what is coming up next. That’s right, Slavic summer festival time. For the first time in the history of my writing, we actually have more ancient historical information on a Slavic festival than we do on Norse. In Poland it is called Noc Kupały (or Kupala Night), and it is the ancient Slavic midsummer festival. Similarly to the effigy of Marzanna in spring, there were attempts to Christianize Kupala Night, and they just didn’t take. Its name is derived from Kupala or Kupalo. The name of the same deity can be used both in the masculine and feminine form, and they are the same deity. Kupala/Kupalo is both the god of the summer sun and the goddess of joy and water. This is where a lot of the traditions of Kupala Night come from. Young people jump over fires as a test of bravery and faith, couples who did so and failed to hold hands during the jump supposedly have their relationship doomed to fail. Young women would float wreaths of flowers down rivers attempting to divine the nature of their future relationship from the pattern of the flowers. Men would try to take those wreaths to capture the interest of those women. Another fun tradition is young people would go into the forest to search for the flower of the fern, which according to legend only blooms on Kupala Night, and those who find it are promised luck, prosperity, power, and discernment. This is a fun bit of folklore if you know anything about the biology of plants. (For those who are lost or haven’t taken a biology class in many years like me, ferns are not flowering plants). That however, is Kupala Night, one of the least Christian European holidays from arguably one of the most Christian nations in Europe.
For the non-European holiday we are going to be looking at Iran and the summer festival of Tirgan. This festival goes back to a figure from Iranian mythology, Arash the Archer. The story goes is there was a land dispute between the kingdoms of Iran and Turan. It was decided that Arash would fire an arrow, and where that arrow landed would be where the border between Iran and Turan would lie. The arrow struck and it began to rain on both kingdoms, ending drought that Turan was suffering and peace then formed between both kingdoms. Tirgan was dedicated to the Zoroastrian angel Tishtrya, the divinity of life-bringing rainfall and fertility. Today, Tirgan is celebrated through splashing water, dancing, poetry recitations, traditional meals, and tying colored ribbons around wrists that are worn for ten days and then sent flowing in a stream as a way to rejoice for children. The historicity of Tirgan is verified through man contemporary and modern Iranian historians.
This is all that I have for today though. If you know of any other interesting traditions around Midsummer please feel free to post it in the comment section on our Facebook. I hope you have enjoyed our discussion of mythology, folklore, and history on History with The Skald’s Circle. If you’d like to know more about these traditions, or perhaps discuss it with me I’m always more than willing. Also, if you have something you would like us to research or have a new article topic in mind, please let us know! If you learned something new, give us a like, and let us know, we really appreciate being noticed… Until then, I’ll be back next month with another fascinating topic. This is Casimir, signing off, and remember, always check your sources very, very carefully; our culture, and our history depends on it.