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UPCOMING GIGS
Sunday 26th July 2–4.30 p.m. Community Bandstand Meadowbank Park, Dorking Sunday 23rd August 2–4.30 p.m. Leith Hill Place, Surrey (National Trust)
Sunday 6th September 2–4.30 p.m. Leith Hill Place, Surrey (National Trust)
The most important festival in June is Midsummer. In the Celtic Year the festival of Litha marks the Summer solstice and great bonfires were lit in honour of the sun. Christians dedicated Midummer’s Day, June 24th, to St. John the Baptist, and the golden flower that pagans had as their emblem of the sun god was re-christened St. John’s Wort. Bunches of the flowers were hung over doors to protect the inhabitants from evil spirits. The plant was believed to be able to move about to avoid having its flowers picked. Midsummer’s Day was undoubtedly one of the high points of the festival year in medieval times. Midsummer was celebrated with bonfires, processions and parades and decorating houses and churches with greenery. The bonfires had two purposes – peace and community on one hand and on the other hand the belief that the smoke from bonfires was medicinal, purifying the air and warding off evil. For this reason, sixteenth-century religious reformers branded Midsummer fires as superstitious and they were finally suppressed. However, the impulse to light bonfires is too strong to set aside on someone’s order. The tradition of building bonfires was particularly strong in the West Country and can still be seen in Cornwall, where a chain of bonfires light up the Cornish hills. At Whalton, in Northumberland, the change in the calendar in 1752 (see the Diary entry for January 2026) has been ignored, and the local people hold their time-honoured ceremony on July 4th, Old Midsummer Eve. A huge fire is lit in the middle of the village, and those who come to see it dance round it as of old. It is said to have burnt annually without a break in the same place for more than two hundred years.
In modern times Midsummer has been associated with the idea that fairies and sprites are abroad and fairy and mortal worlds intermingle; this is no doubt due to the literal reading of the title of Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but the text makes it clear that the play’s action actually takes place on May Day Eve.
The other main feature of Midsummer was the processions. They started in urban areas with the musters of the local watch and were commanded to accompany the mayor and aldermen on Midsummer. Trade guilds also had their parades and in towns these processions became spectacular torch-lit affairs, with giants, devils, hobby-horses, drummers, trumpeters and tableaux depicting famous scenes. One of the processional giants that has survived, which belonged to the Tailor’s Guild, is safely housed in Salisbury Museum. The giant became known as Christopher, presumably associated with the popular saint. Originally fourteen feet tall he has subsequently been shortened to fit into his new home. His head is solid wood but his body is a hollow wooden frame and light enough to be carried on the shoulders of one person hidden inside. His attendants are called ‘Whifflers’ and date back to at least the early sixteenth century; they carry his huge two-handed sword and his mace. The museum also has Hobnob, a hobby horse, which has accompanied Christopher on his outings since the sixteenth century.
(My thanks in research to these excellent books: The English Year by the folklorist Steve Roud, A Dictionary of British Folk Customs by Christina Hole, A Treasury of British Folklore by Dee Dee Chainey and Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain by the Reader’s Digest)
All text, images and music samples on this site are copyright © Childe Rolande.
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Poster for Lucy Anna Martin
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