Talk:Midsummer/Archive 1

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—Yamara ✉ 09:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Time/Assessment|WikiProject Time assessment rating]] comment 

message: Midsummer in the Catalan speaking communities of Spain is the most heavily celebrated night of the year. I live in Barcelona, and can attest that there are more people out celebrating than even in New Year's eve. The entire city is lit with huge designated bonfires, where folks are allowed to feed the fire with any old piece of wooden furniture they want to burn. The beaches are packed. Absolutely everyone is out celebrating, families take tables out on the streets and have traditional dinners with special food, fireworks are going off 3 days before the feast, and every year the regional governments toy with the idea of making this feast (in the guise of Saint John's) THE official holiday of the Catalan Counties. Just wanted to clarify this because from reading the article one would get the impression that outside the picture-perfect Ikea midsummer parties of Scandinavia, not much happens elsewhere.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manuellebron (talk • contribs) 09:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance in Spain 

message: "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
and midsummer in finland is NOT celebrated on the same day than in the rest of the world but the closest friday  to the 24 which then is an national holliday. The reason??! Becaust the govornment dont want people to take the rest of the week off on sickleave!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.102.110.116 (talk) 20:30, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: whaaa?!!

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Page necessity

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

text: 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)
thread_title: Drowned

message: 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)
thread_title: Swedes and phalli

message: "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)
thread_title: False Tolkien attribution

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Needs clarification? A red herring

message: 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)
thread_title: Litha

message: 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.
There is nothing unreasonable about the Celts recognising the summer solstice at all. It is recorded on the Neolithic passage tomb at Knockroe, which is also aligned to the winter solstice. If they could do it in the Neolithic, they could do it in the Iron Age.
:It may not have been unreasonable if they had recognised midsummer, but the question is, did they? The fact that a neolithic tomb happens to point in a particular direction doesn't establish anything about Celtic seasonal celebrations. Fuzzypeg★ 03:07, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Litha in Ireland

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

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

message: Is there any mention of Fairies at all? Because when ever i think of Midsummer i think of magic, fairies, etc. Some one should add something about all that. 66.90.167.185 19:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fairies

message: Is there any real basis for referring to the 21st here? To the best of my understanding, while many people get confused between the current solstice date and Midsummer Day, this is entirely in error. In all dictionaries I can find, "Midsummer Day" is the 24th.
Can we get rid of, rather than supporting and propogating, this common misperception?
Parsingphase 06:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The shift backwards of the longest day against the fixed (Julian, then Gregorian) calendar is a feature of importance. Isn't it due to the precession of the equinoxes? --Wetman 06:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Gregorian calendar follows the "sun-year" closely, not the "star-year", whence the precession is of no relevance here. Actually, it does follow the "sun-year" so accurately, that there is much less than a full day's shift since it was introduced. I personally guess that the (re)assignment of midsummer to the 24'th was done early in the era of the Julian calendar, at a time when actually the summer solistice was at or close to the 24'th by that chalendar.  (Alternatively, it might have been an ecclesiastic thing: If Jesus was thought to be born in the night between the 24'th and the 25'th in the twelwth month, then perhaps a similar date was assigned for the birth of his cousin.  Nota bene: This is pure speculation, and completely unsubstantiated.) JoergenB 14:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

text: i dont think removing the secondary solstice date from this article would be a good idea, as midsummer is like an umbrella term for a dozen different observances. However many people were linked here on the 21st because midsummer was listed on the june 21st selected aniversaries as "midsummer in northern europe (2007)" which is, according to this article intro, incorrect. if it was to be included on the 21st it should have said "midsummer festivities begin (2007)" and then the 24th should say "midsummer day in northern europe". currently the bulk of st john festivals are being listed on the 23rd. (which is also correct).  i'm going to try and squeeze it in on the 24th. i think it goes without saying that we shouldnt let this happen again. Some thing 15:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Date

message: I wanted some reference to the ecclesial holy day.  However, at least in Sweden, this is not what it usually is referred as, nowadays.  Actually, most young Swedes probably don't recognise a connection between the Midsummer's festivities and John the Baptist.  I suspect the same is true in most nordic countries, at least.  Some thing changed (although they are also called Saint John's Day festivals) to (although most are now called Saint John's Day festivals), in the middle of a bunch of otherwise good editing.  I'm changing back this particular sentence; and I'd appreciate a discussion, if someone disagrees with my change. JoergenB 14:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reference to John

message: I removed the selection
on the basis of misspellings alone. It does not fit in an encyclopedia to be writing about "fun family time". Handfasting needs a link as well as Oak King and Holly King, and some sort of reference would be lovely. --WiseWoman (talk) 07:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fun Family Time? 

message: No offense intended but the midsummer page seems to be all over the place.  My question is why is it called "midsummer" when it occurs at the start of summer, not midway through?  Was Summer once centred on midsummer?  Were there just 2 seasons (Summer & Winter).  Does the mid-prefix have some unusual derivation? [Not according to dictionary.com]
Also, couldn't the various blocks of national information and big flags be condensed to less obtrusive list of references to information on the national website concerned?
Ok, so mid summer would mean to people without timepieces that the longest day of the year is here and a celebration is due.  They have just gotten out of a long changing period of darkness to sunlight and it docummented that the sun will already be headed down the horizon.  This in itself can create a sense of doom or looming that the sun will now slowly evade until it is represented by the autumnal equinox as going going gone... We match the longest day of light to mid summer and celebrate it as a holiday.  that is all I have....  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.245.246.6 (talk) 09:11, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The midsummer once was really the middle of the summer. Somewhat inaccurately assuming an equal duration for each of the 4 seasons (astronomically, the summer in the Northern hemisphere is the longest of the 4 seasons), the start of the summer in the old European cultures (Celtic et al.) once was perceived to be approx. 45 days earlier, i.e. at the start of May (also see 1st of May celebretions etc.). Similarly, spring once started with the beginning of what is nowadays called February, its midpoint being the summer equinox (on the Northern hemisphere). Gulliveig (talk) 09:31, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

text: The modern "official" seasons have been set by legislators based on when they feel like nipping over to Tahiti to warm up, rather than based on any understanding of the traditional seasons. The first of May was from time immemorial the end of Spring and the beginning of Summer; and the first day of November was the traditional beginning of Winter. Midsummer and midwinter were indeed the mid-points of summer and winter, just as the equinoxes were the midpoints of spring and autumn. And they still are, to anyone who takes a traditional view! Fuzzypeg★ 06:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  BUT WHY "Mid" Summer?  / Page format