Today is the day and by now they’ve already danced around the midsummer pole. Now days it’s only for the small kids but back in the day it was important for most people since there weren’t that many chances to have a good time, almost all day were work days. So in the early morning, if the Midsummers pole is big, later if it is small they go out to put it together and dress it. It is usually made looking like a huge cross but can have different looks depending on where one live, Midsummers pole,click on the link and You’ll see plenty of photos of what they look like. So the poles are dressed with twigs with leafs and usually lots of flowers. If You have a bit of a dirty imagination You’ll immediately see what it looks like 🙂 🙂 🙂

 

Around noon the dancing starts, we dance to the merry songs The little frog, We are musicians from Skaraborg (the region I live in 🙂 and The priests little crow, all with special movements included. Here’s a link to YouTube showing the little frogs,  Little frogs , this video also includes the following verse the little pigs 🙂 To be honest these people doesn’t move too much to be honest 🙂 When the dancing is done and everyone has been resting for a while the eating starts. WE Swedes are usually very traditional when it comes to what we eat at holidays, so we eat the same things every time 🙂 Usually there’s at least five or six different kinds of pickled herring, I can’t for my life understand how anyone can eat it but Swedes are obcessed with it. Also we do of course have pickled salmon and smoked salmon. Never forget the meatballs and prince sausages for us who hates herring, I think we might be ten people in the entire country 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now days we even have ham but it’s usually more light things we have  like oven omelets with chanterelle stew. I must admit though that barbecuing has become more and more popular thankfully 🙂

   

Then later at night if one wants to know ones future, perhaps see with whom one will marry, one should go out and pick seven to nine (depending on where one lives) different flowers and at the same time climb over just as many fences, all while staying quiet of course. The flowers will then be put under the pillow and one will dream about the future spouse. If You want to stay healthy all winter long it is important to collect as much dew that one can and keep it in glass jars. The best thing is to put it in the yearly bath (well we do have baths more often now days but do it while being sick or at the last bath  before Christmas. One can also pour some in a glass and drink it but make sure the jars are really clean because the dew will stay in there for quite while and god knows what will start to live in there during that time. Another way, especially for children, to keep healthy for the rest of the year was to roll around in the dew totally naked to sort of soak up the power the dew has that night. One could also pour the dew in the dough while baking and it sounds as if one needed to start baking bread very early in the morning because one had to collect it through dragging a cloth over the grass and then wring it out over the dough.

   

All animals could talk with humans during the night towards Midsummers day, so if one treat ones animals well it could be fun to have a chat with them I think 🙂 This was also possible on the night towards Christmas day. In some places they even gave the House gnome porridge, like everyone did during Christmas but that was unusual. There was also a way to see who would die soon and what ones own life would be like but since that could go very wrong I won’t teach You how 🙂 It did however include walking backwards around a cemetery three times during midnight but if one had the bad luck to meet the Grim …..

    

Personally I’ve enjoyed this day by having a somewhat late morning walk. We were supposed  to have sunshine already from when the sun rose, I gave up at around eight am and that was when the clouds slowly broke up and by the time we came home the clouds were all almost gone. After that it has been a rather warm day with no wind so the garden has been filled with mosquitoes and once again that attacked my ancles but now I don’t feel it itching any more. Lots of forest flies as well but my mosquito hat saved me from them 🙂 We also had a long nap and after that I had a small lunch, four halves of, well not french rolls but similar gluten free ones, put in the oven with a layer of butter on. After that I sliced meatballs, tomatoes, some iceberg lettuce from my own garden and a slice of Cheddar cheese. One feel more full after eating the gluten free rolls (but oh what I miss the “real” ones) so that was actually enough as a lunch 🙂 

It’ll rain a lot tomorrow they’re guessing, up to an inch if they have gotten it somewhat right. They have changed that guess several times so far so it might not come anything at all or perhaps snow, who knows 🙂 🙂 🙂 So if the weather is rainy I’ll start to bake some bread, we have so much dew here that I think I can skip normal water (or milk as I usually use) totally 🙂 If You so wish I can continue to write about our beings.

I wish You all an enjoyable Midsummer!