Midsummer!

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Hello, dear Reader,

I’m coming at you a little fuzzy today. I just woke up and my right hand’s wrist is very much in pain. I slept on it weird, I guess. The fuzziness and wrist pain, and the little headache that is being presently managed by paracetamol, hydration and caffeine, are all caused either directly or indirectly by last night:

It is Juhannus, dear reader, or Midsummer for you purely anglo folk over in the Northern Americas and the British isles, the festival of light! (And no, the depiction of this long tradition by the movie Midsommar is not accurate.) Midsummer is and has been celebrated for a long time during the summer solstice which in the Nordic countries is called the ‘nightless night,’ or the ‘longest day of the year.’

In Finland it received the name Juhannus through John the Baptist, whom the day was given as a birthday by the church.

(Other Nordics and some Baltics have Midsummer too, but I am not up for going into detail about them. Go read about it here).

So, what do these Juhannus celebrations contain? You ask.

Well. As with all Finnish days with significance, it is an excuse to get hammered and eat. But, what makes this day unique is that it is tradition to have a bonfire and do all such things as drink, eat, sing, dance, outside. Because, as stated before, it’s just one long day that ends in a thirty minute early-dusk which flips over to and early-dawn.

Juhannus Celebration: Traditional Finnish Midsummer Bonfire (Kokko ... 

No night. No darkness whatsoever.

For people with sturdier constitutions than I, Juhannus is also the one night in the year that you stay up for the better part of 48 hours.

Juhannus is also a time of magic, when, during the strange nightless night, folk magic is practiced to try and gaze into the future. The most popular spells, such as looking into a pond or lake naked at midnight, or circling the sauna three times and looking into a hat, are still practiced by women and girls in an effort to see their future husband.

But enough of that.

Great news!

As you see, the first chapter of book five is here.

Give it a read and inevitably get confused, or not, if you’ve read the interludes.

I’m going to eat and then probably back to sleep. I shan’t admit that I’m hungover, but I shan’t deny it either.

Happy Midsummer everyone!

I’ll see you next Saturday.

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