Midsummer's Day, the middle of summer, falls on on 24 June, after the longest day (Summer Solstice).
Midsummer's Eve is a time associated with witches, magic, fairies and dancing. Magic is in the air.
On the eve of Midsummer's Day, many bonfires were lit all over the country. This was in praise of the sun, for the days were getting shorter and the sun appeared to be getting weaker, so people would light fires to try and strengthen the sun.
Midsummer Day and the time immediately preceding it is believed to have special powers. Medicinal herbs collected from June 1 to the Midsummer Day can cure 12 (some say 99) diseases. There are girls who save their Midsummer Day's wreaths all the year round. Great importance is attached to the Midsummer Day's fire. Its embers are brought home to make the hearth fire, and its ashes are spread in the fields.
Roses are of special importance on Midsummer's Eve. It is said that any rose picked on Midsummer's Eve, or Midsummer's Day will keep fresh until Christmas.
At midnight on Midsummer's Eve, young girls should scatter rose petals before them and say:
Rose leaves, rose leaves,Rose leaves I strew.He that will love meCome after me now.
Then the next day, Midsummer's Day, their true love will visit them.
There are numerous stories about the fern, which comes into blossom in the thick of the woods on Midsummer Night. He who finds a fern blossom becomes a wise, rich and happy man. But it is not easy to find a fern blossom, for horrible monsters and witches try to scare everybody away so that they could snatch the blossom themselves. Everybody who wants to find a fern blossom must know that only nine-year-old ferns can burst into blossom, that it is necessary to spread a silk kerchief under the clump for the blossom to fall onto, to draw a circle around oneself with a rowan stick hallowed in church, light a candle and pray in defiance of the monsters around. The blossom that drops onto the kerchief looks like a speck of gold. It is best to saw it under the skin of a finger or the palm, then nobody will steel it from you.
Only a very good man can hope to find a fern blossom and it can happen only once in his lifetime, Sometimes the fern blossom drops into a poor man's bast shoe unawares and suddenly the man acquires knowledge of the hidden treasures, of the speech of animals and birds, trees and bees. But when the man comes home and takes off his shoes, the fern blossom falls out, all the man's knowledge disappears.
On Midsummer Day dew has special healing powers. Young girls wash their faces in it to make themselves beautiful, older people do the same to make themselves younger. It is good to walk barefoot in dew on Midsummer Day's morning, for it saves the skin from getting chapped.
You must be thinking , why I am so much intrested in mid-summer's day? Actually its a matter of honour for me that I was Born on 24th June i.e The Mid-Summer's day, and I think this is why I am so much in MAGIC...!!!
-MAGICIAN KSHITIJ
