Talk:Midsummer

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An event mentioned in this article is a June 21 selected anniversary.

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Contents 1 Picture scam? 2 whaaa?!! 3 Page necessity 4 Drowned 5 Astronomical problems 6 Swedes and phalli 7 False Tolkien attribution 8 Needs clarification? A red herring 9 Proposal: Rewrite Intro 10 Litha 11 Litha in Ireland 12 Julian calendar

[edit] Picture scam?

Just take a look at the pictures "from Denmark" and "from Finland"... the bunny there for example stands in pretty similar position... I'll try to upload a pic from Finland --sigs

[edit] whaaa?!!

"Midsummer in Finland is celebrated a lot more intensely as in Sweden. A great many people get indecently drunk and happy." this sounds kind of bs-y...

 :) it is --sigs

[edit] Page necessity

Is this page necessary? I think other holidays have their traditional aspects and Neopagan aspects merged together in one page. - Montréalais

The traditional holiday celebration does have its origin in pagan roots, but this is not the same as saying that it is still part of a ritualistic cult celebration. I couldn't see how it was be possible to preserve the integrity and references of the existing entry and avoid giving this connotation to the traditional holiday. I think there are issues with neopagan connotation in other entries relating to traditional holidays. -- Mic

Actually, I think the point is that the neopagan holiday celebration has its origin in traditional roots. I would favour merging them and also Midsummer Day, which is the English tradition comparable to the Scandinavian ones mentioned on the "(holiday)" page. —Ashley Y 22:54, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)

OK, I've merged them. The idea is that midsummer is simply a time of the year, and different people do different things with it. —Ashley Y 00:16, Dec 1, 2003 (UTC)

Midsummer is a very important issue in many countries. If you live far up north, more than 50 degrees north latitude, the difference between the light in the summer and the winter is very significant, and midsummer is by some people seen as more important as Christmas. Actually, Christmas was placed at december 24th, because it replaced the old "mid-Winter" party. In Denmark, this Midwinter party was named "Jul", and before Christianity it was celebrated by eating and drinking a lot and having a good time. Today, Danes still celebrate Jul at december 24th, by eating and drinking a LOT and having a good time. Christmas dinners with lots of alcohol is probably the aspect of Jul (Christmas) that Danes spend most time on. The Danish name Jul which predates christianity, is also found in the English name "Yule". It is fine to merge midsummer descriptions for several countries, since all the countries are newer than the celebration, but Midsummer definitely deserves a big article - Lars Dybdahl October 30th, 2005

"neopagan holiday"... come ON... it's very much like christmas in Finland for example... would you characterise christmas as a "neopagan holiday"? :P --sigs —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 138.246.7.56 (talk) 19:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

I have carefully set links, identified by the conventional bullets, at the end of each section where they describe the festivities of that particular nation. I hope someone won't come along and bundle them all together helter-skelter at the end of the entry with the general links. Wetman 17:11, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Drowned

"The statistics of the number of men drowned with their zipper open is morbidly recounted every year." That quote is a riot! --Tyhjiö 18:56, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Someone is really having fun... Thorri 14:09, 21 Aug 2005 (UTC)

but it's actually true, what is meant is the amount of drownings with "a contribution of alcohol to the case" (as is said). It's like an idiom; if you're drunk and stand up in a rowing boat, you just might fall over, hit your head and fall into water face down. End of story. So it's not really that bad and might be allowed in Wikipedia, with an explanation maybe? --sigs —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 138.246.7.56 (talk) 19:51, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Astronomical problems

Midsummer Day, or St. John's Day, the Feast of John the Baptist, is celebrated on June 24. The summer solstice now falls about June 21. Is this because of the Precession of the equinoxes? If so, can an astronomer give us a date-span (rather long one, of course) when the summer solstice actually fell on June 24? Wouldn't that suggest when the origins of St. John's Day lie? Wetman 20:33, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Does the discussion about predicting the start of the festival by the shift in days between Midsummer and the Equinox need to take the switch to the Julian calendar into account? Dumbledad 10:08, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

We now have two sets of text, viz:

• Old version: Solstitial celebrations still center upon June 24, but the precession of the equinoxes has moved the actual astronomical equinox forward several days in the calendar, because the tropical year is about 20.4 minutes less than the period for the earth to make one complete orbit of the sun. Midsummer Night, or "Midsummer's Eve," marks the beginning of the day, which today falls on June 21, though the hour varies because of perturbations. The difference gives a very rough estimate of the age of these celebrations, if it takes 700 years to shift the equinox forward a full day (1440 minutes). The difference, about 2100 years, gives a very rough estimate of the age of these celebrations.
• New version: Solstitial celebrations still center upon June 24 which was the date of the midsumer solstice when the Julian calendar was created in 45 BCE. The difference between the Julian calendar year (365.2500 days) and the tropical year (365.2422 days) moved the actual astronomical solstice forward several days between 45 BCE and 325 CE (First Council of Nicaea). This movement forward continued until the creation of the Gregorian calendar in 1582. The change to the Gregorian calendar returned the solstice to the 21st June as had been agreed at the First Council of Nicaea.

Is any of this right? Can we get an astronomer/chrographer to rewrite this so we all can get it clearly in mind? --Wetman 14:12, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have edited the new version so that it should now be OK. BTW the date change has nothing to do with the precession of the equinoxes : JGB

I've made another slight edit to remove repeated information that was given in two successive sentences. Fuzzypeg☻ 06:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Swedes and phalli

In the Sweden section the following quote appears: "the traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge (phallic) maypole."

I hate to be a prude but is there any real justification (other than speculative Freudian analysis) for the description of maypoles as phallic???

Fair enough. Phallic questions belong at Maypole not here. --Wetman 20:27, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] False Tolkien attribution

"This holiday is also sometimes called Litha. Its use as the name for this holiday may trace back only to its appearance in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Prior to that, "Litha" appears to refer to the entire summer season."

I removed this. It's incorrect. The summer season is divided into "Erelitha" and "Afterlitha" in the Germanic calendar. Litha is the word used for midsummer itself in the old Germanic languages. Where do you think Tolkien got it from?

Also, someone should really do something about the troll page crediting Tolkien with introducing American culture to the concept of "trolls". That's just plain dumb. I know it's fashionable right now to credit Tolkien with everything from the invention of hobbits and ents to the internal combustion engine, but this stuff is getting silly. Wikipedia is beginning to look less like an encyclopedia and more like an advertisement for Lord of the Rings. --Corvun 11:45, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Needs clarification? A red herring

The day of Saint John the Baptist is not marked by Christian churches with the emphasis one might otherwise expect of such an important saint.

This statement needs to be clarified. I'm not sure what the author intended by it at all. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24th) as a Solemnity, which is the highest degree a liturgical feast can have. It's even one of the few saint's feasts that is celebrated even when it falls on a Sunday; typically the feast of a saint is superceded when it falls on a Sunday, which is the weekly celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. There is hardly any way the that the feast of St. John the Baptist could be given more emphasis in the litugical calendar that it already has. (Anonymous edit)

A red herring. The "day" of other saints is always the day of their death or martyrdom, not their birthday, which in John the Baptist's case is the Christian cover for the summer solstice. The comparable feast, the "day" of John the Baptist in the ordinary sense of a "saint's day", is actually the feast of the Decollation of Saint John the Baptist, celebrated by both Catholic and Orthodox on August 29, a feast which indeed "is not marked by Christian churches with the emphasis one might otherwise expect of such an important saint". This information needs to go back into the article, along with the disambiguation provided by our anonymous and disingenuous censor. --Wetman 22:17, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I have added our contributor's description of the church's emphasis on the saint's birthday into the article, pretty much as it stands above. --Wetman 22:27, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: Rewrite Intro

Proposal by Nowhither 01:21, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The introduction of this article is inappropriate, IMHO. How about moving much of the introductory material to a (new?) separate page: "Christian holidays with pre-Christian roots". Include material on Christmas, etc. Then rewrite the intro to this page as something like the following:

Midsummer refers to the period of time on and near the summer solstice, particularly when celebrated as a traditional holiday. Note that, while modern Western culture generally considers summer to begin on the solstice, traditionally in the British Isles the summer season was considered to be centered on the solstice, beginning halfway between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice and ending halfway between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox.)

Midsummer celebrations appear in many cultures throughout the world and often have ancient roots. Many of these celebrations have been Christianized, now being known as St. John's Eve, St. John's Day, and similar names, all purporting to commemorate the birth of John the Baptist. In recent years, many involved in the neopagan movement have celebrated Midsummer in ways that are based on pre-Christian celebrations.

I like the later sections of this article, although some of them badly need expanding.

This article is about Midsummer, not the Christian holiday of St. John's Eve, or St. John's Day, or similar names. Rewriting the intro of this page to push some ultra-fundamentalist POV by removing any references to non-Christian celebrations of Midsummer would be both inappropriate and unethical. --Corvun 03:41, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

The suggested alternative opening is somewhat generic, pat and uninformative, compared to the present opening. What does a reader actually want to know, when they look up "Midsummer"? Does the present article fail the reader in any way? What's the agenda behind the word "inappropriate" used here? Is there an agenda in hiding the Christianization of pagan origins in a separate closet? The article Christianization has material on Christianization. Sections that "badly need expanding" should indeed be expanded. That's always the better approach. --Wetman 03:59, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Wow! Could we all maybe pretend I have good intentions here? Corvun: "ultra-fundamentalist"?? My goodness. Please reread my suggested introduction. Wetman: "agenda"? I don't want to "hide" Christianization of holidays, I want to put together a useful article detailing the process, rather than having info scattered all over the place. In any case, thanks for the pointer to christianization; I'm glad to see the page already exists. There should be a link to it somewhere on this page.

Now regarding "Does the present article fail the reader in any way?" I think the introduction definitely does. First of all, it does not adequately explain the ancient understanding of "summer" that underlies the term "midsummer", possibly leading to confusion on the part of the reader. In the U.S. at least, most people seem to think it is written in stone that summer starts on the solstice. Second, it contains a lengthy anti-christian section that is not appropriate to any Wikipedia article. Third, it contains a bunch of info on Saint Eligius that is pretty nearly irrelevant, and hardly what people are coming to this page for.

Again, I think the later sections, and the overall organization, are good. But the introduction is too long, leaves out important info, includes unneeded info, and is highly POV.

— Nowhither 16:15, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Well if there's no agenda, that will be lovely. We'll soon see: the brief quote of Eligius specifically concerns Midsummer and nought else, set in the briefest disambiguation: since it is demonstrably not actually "irrelevant", what is "irrelevant" a codeword for here? Just tell us, so we know where we are. If any text is "POV", as the phrase is, then there's assumed to be an alternate "POV": what is the alternate "POV" missing here then? Just so we know where we are. As far as failing the reader, there is an article Summer, where one might better expect 'the ancient understanding of "summer"' rather than in the opening paragraph here. But closer to the agenda, what is the "lengthy anti-christian section"—suppressing it, whatever it is, appears to be the agenda: is not that it? Otherwise, a modest and neutral editor might begin by disentangling the Astronomical problems mentioned in an above section. --Wetman 21:56, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Litha

This page states

or Litha as it was known by the ancient Germanic peoples and to this day by modern Pagans,

And Mabon states:

the term was invented by Aidan Kelly in the 1970s as part of a religious studies project. (The use of Litha for the Summer Solstice is also attributed to Kelly).

Anyone got a citation for an ancient Germanic festival of that name? Germanic calendar lists three months (two regular and one intercalary), which sounds like the whole of summer not a midsummer festival, and is unsourced. Litha is not that helpful. --Nantonos 12:53, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Litha in Ireland

The Quarter Days in the lives of ancient people speaking a language in the Celtic branch of language were not the solstices or equinoxes. That ancient Celts recognized the Summer Solstice at all is a longshot. There is a celebration called Bonfire Night in places like Donegal on the 23rd of June.

Samhain, Imbolc/Oimelc/Lá Fhéile Bríde, Bealtaine, and Lughnasadh are the Quarter Days for the Celts and they are all mid-season in a modern persons way of thinking.

[edit] Julian calendar

Does anyone actually still follow the Julian calendar? I thought pretty much everyone had converted to the Gregorian calendar, which does not move with respect to the seasons. -- Beland 11:33, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The "movement" that is in question is due to the precession of the equinoxes, I'd have thought: the longest day of the year which was formerly on the 24th, now falls on the 21st or 22nd... --Wetman 01:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The Church of Russia, along with several other Orthodox Churches, still follows the Julian calendar. However, the article as it stands reads, "Ivan Kupala Day is the day of summer solstice celebrated in Russia and Ukraine on 7 July OS and 23 June NS." 7 July OS = 20 July NS, and 23 June NS = 10 June OS. I don't know which is the correct day for Ivan Kupala Day, so I haven't corrected the error. WilliamBarrett

Should it be 7 July NS and 23 June OS? Man vyi 09:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

According to an article here, 23-24 June is the old style date. So I've changed the article to reflect the corresponding new style date. WilliamBarrett 12:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)