A Viking Midsummer in Ireland Jumping the bonfire on Midsummer's Eve There's nothing quite like Midsummer for an old Irish Norseman like myself. While sitting here in the town square with my good wife, Mæva, waiting for our venerable elders to light the Midsummer's Eve bonfire, I recall the happy days of my youth that brought me and my family to Dubh Linn (Dublin). Every Spring, we men went on Viking expeditions to Ireland and didn't return home until after Midsummer. Of course we brought our customs with us and celebrated wherever we set up camp. After all, we weren't always the crazed warriors our enemies saw. Back home, most of us were simple farmers and fishermen with beautiful wives and adoring children. And so, when we lit the Midsummer bonfires in our Irish longphorts, we drank an abundance of mead and envisioned the lovers we left behind leaping gracefully over the flames, their long white legs flashing in the firelight, promising a night of bliss. Now, after many bloody battles, we are finally settled here in Dubh Linn and have returned to farming and fishing and become part of the Irish landscape. For a small agrarian community like ours, Midsummer is a welcome respite between Spring sowing and Summer haymaking. Life just doesn't get any sweeter. It's that perfect time when baby animals are frolicking near their mothers, trees are shedding their blossoms and are about to bear fruit, and the crops are beginning to grow. This is truly the season to pray and give thanks for a bountiful harvest. That is why, for us, the highlight of the festival is the lighting of the purifying bonfires. Since our arrival on these emerald shores, the approach of Midsummer has been heralded by throngs of young boys and girls going house to house asking for kindling for the community bonfire. Earlier today, my two youngest sons, Gluniarain and Yngvarr, were among them, ready to subject those who refused to tricks and name calling. Later tonight, they will announce the generous donors and the crowd will clap and cheer, while the stingy will be met with jeers, hoots and catcalls. The parades of young people collecting the fuel throw anything on the growing heap that will burn, including turf, wood, sticks, furze bushes and brambles. Some towns compete to see who will have the biggest and best bonfire and the communal pyre is heaped so high, a ladder is needed to set the last bundle of kindling on top. Imagine, if you will, a world in which nights are impenetrably black and a colossal blaze that leaves everyone for miles around gasping with admiration! Ah, look! The sun is finally setting, and the elders are about to light the massive pyre our children have built. You are welcome to join me and my family for a bier and watch the fire crackle to life. The darker it gets, the higher the flames rise, until they appear to lick the sky. Crowds of people young and old are gathered together for the spectacle, praying for abundant crops and tapping their toes to the lively music. Soon everyone is laughing and dancing, and couples are leaping over the bonfire for purification, luck and love. The celebrations spread out over the countryside, and from the "first fire," other bonfires are lit at crossroads, in graveyards, by holy wells and in and around our homes to keep mischievous demons and fairies away. Items such as herbs, bones, pebbles, broken rosaries and damaged statues of gods and saints are burned for good luck. Troublesome weeds are also tossed into the flames in order to protect the fields, or to inflict back luck on an enemy. My wife joins the other women walking sunwise around the fire praying for their gardens and good weather. They believe if they don't pray on this blessed night, their neglect could bring a bad barley harvest, or prevent the white trout from swimming up-river with the Midsummer floods. My three lovely daughters, Friðgerðr, Kormlöð and Mýrún, wave to me as they run off to join the other girls on a special adventure. They have spent several days gathering magical Midsummer flowers and herbs and are wearing pretty wreaths and ribbons in their hair. Earlier today, they made garlands of St. John's Wort and hung them on our doors for protection from ghosts and evil spirits. Now they are going hunting in the moonlight for mugwort fern flowers that are said to bloom only at midnight on Midsummer's Eve. They believe that the enchanted blossoms will bestow second sight, visions of their future spouses, strength, moral fortitude, good fortune and possibly an encounter with the wee folk, and that charms made from mugwort seeds will help them find buried treasure and make things invisible. Each girl will also sow a hemp seed at exactly midnight while chanting: Hemp-seed I sow, hemp-seed I hoe, and he that is my true love come after me and mow. Before they go to bed, they will wash their faces in the healing, beautifying Midsummer morning dew and tuck yarrow stalks under their pillows to invoke dreams of their husbands-to-be. Meanwhile, back at the bonfire, things are getting pretty wild, and I'm getting pretty drunk from knocking back the suds with my best war buds. In between the music, we're reciting poems and telling tales that are growing longer and taller by the minute, when suddenly old Mýrkjartan plunges a pitchfork into the fire and waves it wildly in the air for everyone to see the blazing branch impaled on its tines. "That's how a real Viking warrior should die!" he proclaims. "Drunk and happy in his burning boat with a good woman at his side, not in the ground with the worms." The seasoned warriors roar with delight at Mýrkjartan's proclamation and those closest to him slap him on the back approvingly, while the rest of us sail burning "boat" sticks across the bonfire and watch the flames devour the showers of sparks. The crowd cheers and shouts and people beat on tin cans and blow on harsh-sounding horns made from glass bottles that can be heard miles away. A clearing forms and the men start competing in games like casting weights and other feats of strength, agility and speed. Seeing that I am too drunk to win any of the games, my lovely wife ends her prayers and saunters over to my side, her ample hips swaying saucily and her sky blue eyes inviting me to follow her home. Eager to oblige, I wish my friends a Happy Midsummer's Eve and leave them to their revelry. We walk hand-in-hand to our home, where Mæva lights the hearth with a piece of burning log from the first bonfire for good luck. Giggling like a young girl, she then leads me to our private loft. The air is heady with the sweet scent of flowers and herbs, and the smell of her drives me mad. I take her gently in my arms and close the door on prying eyes. After our lovemaking, we drift into a blissful sleep wrapped in each other's arms. Tomorrow we will be up bright and early for the Midsummer's Day celebrations. The fires will have burned down and each householder will carry ashes from our hearths to sprinkle in the four corners of our fields for blessings on the crops and a peaceful death to our old folks. Failing to do so could bring bad luck. We will also light torches from the embers of last night's fires and carry them around the fields and inside the milking sheds to ward off evil. Later we will all congregate in the Great Hall for the Midsummer blót-feast, a religous observance that strengthens bonds between kin and reminds us of our connection to Nature and Her bounty. As one of the two great tides, Midsummer, or Sun's Wending, is the Norse counterpart to Jól and marks one of the seasons of the year. We call it Phol-days or Baldr-days. In later years, it has become known as St. John's Day by the Christians and Lá Fhéile Eoin by the Gaels and is now celebrated on June 24th; and many of our customs and beliefs, though still alive, have become intertwined with those who were here before us. Though bonfires were lit to different gods long before we arrived, perhaps it is our similarities that invited intermarriage and eventually united the Vikings and the Gaels in Ireland. Here Midsummer brings us together at a most beautiful time of year, to light purifying fires and jump over them, to pray for protection and good harvest, and to dance and feast and drink in celebration of all that is good in life. And so, dear friends, please join us at The Red Boar this Midsummer, where we will raise our ornamented ale cups in celebration and drink and sing together about all that is fine, as the old Norse skald Sigurdrfiumal once did: Ale I bring thee, thou oak of battle With strength blended and brightest honour — 'Tis mixed with magic and mighty songs, With goodly spells, wish-speeding runes. Sources The Fires of Midsummer's Eve Midsummer - St. John's Eve The Religious Practices of the Pre-Christian and Viking Age North Dublin Public domain illustrations from Wikimedia Commons and Gutenberg Press

Library ~ Table of Contents ~ Table test Announcement Test III Test IV Test V Welsh Single Malt? Test Test tables Croabh Sgaith Glossary of Gaelic Terms Án Brídeóg Brídeóg Customs in Ireland and Scotland Hogmanay greeting Nessie of Loch Ness Calanais - Callanish Standing Stones A Viking Midsummer in Ireland