#juhannus

You know the picture, dark silhouettes of people dancing frantically around a flaming red bonfire. Bare feet, love potions, sauna, odd rituals, a night that never comes, a sun that doesn’t set. You know the picture.

Even to this day Juhannus (’Midsummer’) has a special meaning to Finns. It’s completely normal to go ask your boss if you can leave the office a little early today since it’s Juhannus and you’re supposed to go to your cottage. (That is, if your boss hasn’t already left for the exact same reason.)

We burn our bonfires, we gather seven flowers, hop over seven fences and sleep with the tiny bouquet under our pillows in order to get a glimpse of our future lover in our dreams. But where do these old habits come from? What is Juhannus at it’s core? Well gather around the candle children, for I will do my best to unravel it.

The origin

As in many other European cultures, Juhannus is a celebration of fertility and light. During the pre-Christian times, this celebration was held in the name of the god Ukko. When Christianity started to gain hold the celebration got to carry the name of John the Baptist (fin. Johannes) since his birthday was supposedly celebrated around the same time. The old name, Ukon juhla (celebration of Ukko) held on in southern Karelia until the late 1800′s. In some dialects Juhannus is called mittumaari, mettumaari & messumaari.

The events

Certainly the most well known tradition associated with Juhannus is the bonfires. This originated from Karelia and was absorbed into the celebrations held across the country during the 1900′s. So this is in fact a fairly new part of the festivities. The bonfires are mostly associated with the cleansing of bad spirits and bringing about good fortune, good crops and healthy cattle.

Bathing in the sauna was done early in the day, so as to be clean and ready to take on the nightless night when the time came. The sauna and the house would be adorned with green leaved trees, most commonly birch and/or aspen. Young birch trees would be cut down and placed on either side of the main door and to frame windows. A thorough cleaning of the house was also considered an important tradition, as usual during the turning of seasons. The clean floors would then be covered with the leaves of rowan, aspen and bird cherry.

In parts of Ostrobothnia people set up a spruce tree on the yard (sort of like a Christmas tree, but trimming away all branches except for the very top, leaving a hat of sorts.) This tree then stood on the yard until kekri, harvest time. Whereas birches would be taken down quite soon after Juhannus was celebrated.

The magic

As is with so many other seasonal turning points, Juhannus was also seen as a time when the borders of the spirit world and our world thinned, and therefore it was a brilliant time for magical purposes. Love related magic was not only very popular but also easy for everyone to do. Juhannus was the time when one could catch a glimpse of their future, be it good harvest or a new lover.

The dew that covered the fields on Juhannus was seen as the very power of the crops and thus it held immense power. One would collect it from their own fields, store it and give it to the cattle when autumn came in order to strengthen the cattle with the force of summer before winter. The dew was also used to cure various common illnesses, either by drinking it or sprinkling it on the skin.

As concluded in my text about healing, people believed that the amount of good fortune was fixed, and therefore one could perform dark magic on the night of Juhannus and snatch away another’s good fortune by collecting the dew from their field and sprinkling it on their own. This way their crops would flourish as the other’s would shrivel and die.

The dew also provided help in powerful love spells. After a maiden who desired to be wed returned from watching a bonfire (or right after bathing in the sauna) she would roll naked in the fields belonging to a house where a desired partner lived. The powerful dew would then stick to the maiden’s skin, and furthermore, when the men of the house would later in the year eat the bread of the crops, the lust and desire would then get a hold of them as well. And they would then live happily ever after.

Here’s a little list of easy midsummer magic for seeing your future partner:

• place a four leaved clover under your pillow for the night
  
• place a wreath tied with nine strands of hay under your pillow for the night
  
• look into a well, naked, at midnight
  
• listen to the cuckoo singing in the night, each sound is one year until you will meet your lover
  
• walk around a triangle shaped field thrice, naked, and on the third time you will meet your lover
  
• the smoke from the bonfire blows towards the one to be wed soon
  
• if logs stood up after the bonfire burned low, there would be as many spinsters as there were logs standing up
  
• walking backwards towards a pile of logs after sauna would determine the kind of lover you would get, if your butt hit a log that was split in half your lover would be taken or married already, but if it was still whole your lover was single and would be your entirely

The myth

Aarni, the guardian deity of treasure, cleaned his treasure during the night of Juhannus. He would burn away the mildew and rust on his coins and jewels, creating a magical flame with a blue hue. This rare flame was called aarnivalkea (cf. wisp) and by following this blue light one might stumble upon a fortune.

One could increase their chances of spotting such a blue flame by looking for it through a ring shaped object; better still if the ring was formed naturally, such as a twig that had formed into the shape of a ring as it grew. A skull worked also, but it had to be fetched from the cemetery on a midsummer’s night. The best place to look for an aarnivalkea would be from high up a tree or at the crossroads where three roads met.

The journey to the treasure of Aarni was a perilous one during which one would meet all sorts of horrors from the world beyond, one of them being a mythical ox. If one was brave enough to hold the ox by it’s horns they might wake in the morning to see that they were holding a pot of treasure instead.

Pteridium aquilinum, bracken (fin. sananjalka, saniainen), was believed to bloom only on the night of Juhannus. It was believed that it used to be a beautifully blooming plant until someone had wiped her ass with the leaf of a bracken, and the poor plant was so ashamed of this that it only dared to bloom in the midst of midsummer’s night.

If one was lucky enough to see this mythical blooming they might also be able to snatch the seed of the bracken, which was believed to grant one magical powers, such as the ability to turn invisible. Another magical trick was to cut the bracken close to it’s root at a slant and then look at the black dots appearing on the surface. These would form the initials of, you guessed it, one’s future lover.

Getting drunk and being noisy during Juhannus was believed to bring about a good harvest and good fortune as well as banish bad spirits. So in honour of these ancient traditions, that is exactly what I plan to do this Juhannus, drink responsibly and make some noise to keep away the forces of evil.

Questions?