Magical Midsummer

Extremes have always fascinated human beings, the largest, fastest, shortest, and so forth. Whether midsummer (c. June 21 in the northern hemisphere) the longest day or shortest night, is moot. What matters is that something special, magical is afoot on this remarkable day/night. Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a nod to this sense of rarity. In European traditions, the supernatural world mingles with that of the human, causing a heady mix of havoc and revelation, recognition and reconciliation. As in every good comedy play, the ending of AMND is a world put to rights. But long before the man from Warwickshire began his writing, the known world venerated the summer solstice most notably through the construction of stone "calendar" sites like Stonehenge. The vanquishing of the druids saw the transforming of these pagan venerations into St. John's Eve, a time for lighting bonfires and spreading the resulting ashes on soil in prep for the following year's crops, all very good agricultural practice. In these secular times, most of us don our summer finery and enjoy the spate of events that summer brings, the outdoor concerts and opera, the tennis at Wimbledon, the racing at Ascot, all served up with strawberries and cream. But I always imagine them spangled with a dash of the ancient, midsummer magic.