Alex

Midsummer Eve today. Up here in the cold north we celebrate this holiday, which earlier was connected to the summer solstice (the actual summer solstice was this wednesday). The summer solstice is the longest day, hence the shortest night, of the year. Of course that's something we celebrate up here, since we suffer from so long, dark and cold winters, and very short summers. The christian church have taken over this holiday in many other countries, it's celebrated in the name of John the Baptist, but up here we've stuck to the pagan Midsummer.

This was earlier a fertility holiday. Sex and love have been the main theme since the Viking age (even though not many modern Swedes knows about this). To make love during Midsummer was a celebration to Frej, the Norse god of love. The Midsummer Night was supposed to be full of supernatural beings, and if one did the right things, foreseeing the future was possible. For example, if young girls picked seven or nine different flowers and put them under their pillow at night, they would dream oftheir future husband.

I used to celebrated Midsummer with mamma and pappa in the countryside when I was little. I guess my little brother must have been there too, he's four years younger than me, but our parents split up when I was six. I was too young to really remember. However, I do remember Midsummer. My parents made a traditional Maypole (this have nothing to do with the month May, the Swedish word maja apparently means to leaf, which makes about as much sense in Swedish that it does in English,  it means that people decorated their homes with leafes).
A Maypole is an old phallic symbol, something that the modern Swedes,once again, are more or less aware of. The Maypole is a big cross, standing freely on the ground, with a circle hanging fom each arm, the whole thing covered in birch twigs and flowers. If one follows the tradition, which, unfortunately, many Swedes do, one should dance around the Maypole and sing weird songs about the small frogs (why? I don't know). And, according to the tradition, girls an women (men too, if they want, but many don't) wears a wreath of flowers on their heads. Mamma always made me beautiful wreat of flowers. We all wore them, even my dad. I'm not sure if the flowers in my fathers hair is something I actually remember, or if I've just seen it in old photographs. We picked seven flowers which I put under my pillow, there was always a lot of tiny bugs in my bed when I woke up the day after. This is do remember. I can't remember if Prince Charming ever showed up in my dreams though. Maybe he didn't, I've never been much attracted to Prince Charming anyway.



Me and Bunny out on Midsummer Eve adventures
in the city with pappa and my stepmom, I was 10.

Happy Midsummer Eve!



/Alex



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