 |
| Midsummer's Day on Dartmoor - If you wish to use my photos please attribute this blog, thanks! |
[Yesterday was the longest day of the year - the 21st of June - the solstice: Midsummer! We did not do much to celebrate this year, we simply climbed a big hill in Chagford with friends and drank cider.
In the evening we did see the smoke from one distant bonfire rise - a day after the Midsummer Eve, but who knows - it could have been a Midsummer fire!
Most Midsummer lore is old lore, even in the West Country. I have read of rights happening on Midsummer solstice from Roman times (and almost definitely before) through to the 19th century. They range from the rolling of flaming wheels down hillsides to the lightning of fires on their top through to
the modern festivals of today.
The only 'folk' (or grassroots) custom I have been aware of in my lifetime is the summer solstice sunrise at Stonehenge. This is on the very edge of the West Country by anyone's standards, but it attracts people from across the area.
I distinctly remember my Granny (who lived in Dorset) witnessing from her car some of the horrible police violence against travelers during the event that became known as the 'battle of the beanfeild' in the 1980's (a really good fair account is found in
this book
). At this time a convoy of travelers in decorated buses and cars where making their way to the annual meeting place of Stonehenge for a free (and illegal) festival at the stones for midsummer, which was also attended by the Druids.
 |
| Stonehenge free festival Midsummer 1984, the year before it was violently shut down - Salix alba at en.wikipedia [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
Later, in the 1990's, when this festival was supposedly 'closed down' I remember talking to adults (I was a teenager) who had spent the night hiding in ditches and evading police helicopters to participate in the magical (and peaceful) midsummer sunrise. A fair number of people emerged from their hedges and ditches and trees to celebrate together within the exclusion zone guarded so rigorously half a mile away by a ring of riot police!
Later still, in the early 2000's when the open celebrations once again became legal I remember coming back from work along a Devon lane and spotting a group of friends who lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle centered on Dartmoor. They pulled over, leaned out of the car window and said "We're off to the stones. Want to come?". I was tired from digging and declined. I did not know them that well and they where going for a few days. It was only that night I realised that the next day was the Solstice. I have always regretted not taking that ride!
It was once said (and may still be) that certain stone circles on Dartmoor dance in a ring for Midsummer (in
A Book of Dartmoor
by Sabine Baring-Gould 1900). These including Belstone circle, said to have been formed from cursed maidens who dared to
dance on the sabbath (
A Book of the West Vol. 1
by Sabine Baring-Gould 1900).
Midsummer, like all the solstices and equinoxes and all the quarter festivals in between seem quite 'thin' times, when the boundaries of the worlds are at their most bridgeable, especially for the Pixie folk and their kin.
Perhaps this is why the Maidens of Belstone could dance again at Midsummer.
In Cornwall
stories are told of miners meeting and doing deals with the Knockers and 'smae folk' at this time, while on the edge of the cliffs at Lands End the verdant flowers of the Fairy Gardens can be observed most easily in
the Midsummer moonlight. Midsummer was also when
one Cornish maid observed the Small People tending her cow (also due to a four leaved clover).
At Ottery Saint Mary an event is held to commemorate an old folk tale where the pixies battled with the monks to try to prevent them casting or ringing the church bells. Eventually they where thwarted and one bell christened 'Mary'. When she sounded all pixies where banished within her call (a good version in
this book
). The festivities today celebrate this, with a temporary reprieve given around midsummer. Children then play the part of the Pixies, running amok and trapping the bell-ringers!
 |
| Midsummer on Natadon - our own granite gateway to the piskies on Nattadon Hill, Chagford (this is not a widely held bit of lore - however a few of my friends regularly pass through this gap and make wishes or prayers or other spells) - If you wish to use my photos please attribute this blog, thanks! |
Midsummer is now widely celebrated by organised festivals in places such as
Penznace or
Littleham in Devon.
At Buckland-on-the-Moor a sheep was taken and sacrificed on a rock in front of a large crowd on Midsummer day, sprinkling themselves with its blood, before feasting and holding competative games (in
Devonshire And Other Original Poems by Elias Tozer 1873). A similar event with the roasting of a ram took place at Holne on Dartmoor at Midsummer (from
Guide to Dartmoor: Southern and Western Section by William Crossing 1914) - though Theo Brown says this was a May day event (in Kingsteignton Ram Roasting Fair, Folklore, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Sep., 1950), p. 153). There were also Midsummer games held at Penberth in Cornwall (
Popular Romances of the West of England
by Robert Hunt 1900)
At Whitborough in Cornwall a midsummer festival was held by a tumulli where a phantom Black Dog had appeared (from The Black Dog by Theo Brown in Folklore, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Sep., 1958), pp. 175-192)
On Dartmoor in the 19th century the forests pony drifts where held around midsummer, and started with the blowing of a horn through a holed stone on top of a hill. This was to separate the horses of those with rights to the moor to those with out (in
A Book of Dartmoor by Sabine Baring-Gould 1900).
Mrs Bray
talks of an older less regulated custom whereby any cow or sheep found on the moor was impounded on old Midsummer day. They where then held ransom by the farmer that had caught them - a sort of mischief day for animal rading!
 |
| A distant Midsummer bonfire spotted from Nattadon Hill near Chagford, placed near the summit of a hill like days of old! - If you wish to use my photos please attribute this blog, thanks! |
At the very western end of Cornwall on the evening of the 23rd of June huge fires where lit on the hilltops, The next day enjoyable 'excursions' took place at sea (from
The Year Book
by William Hone). This was also reported for Midsummer-eve at Penzance and Falmouth (which can fall between the 20th-24th of June). Around 1800 the clifftops from the Lizard to Lands End where lit up in great numbers that shrank and then vanished over the next hundred years. At Escols in Cornwall these fires where lit from ones kindled on a Garrick Zan, or Holy Rock, used with fire at other times to determine guilt, and said to have been the first altars of Christian worship(from
Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt 1900).
At Penzance the fires where even more exciting. Flaming tar barrels and bonfires lined the middle of the roads and weaving in amoung them where young people of both sexes carrying tar soaked canvas on 3 to 4 foot poles. These they lighted and swung around their heads producing vast flames. The shopfronts where lit up with many candles on still Midsummer-Eve nights. The night ended with strings of young people threading through and over the fires, showered with sparks and fireworks. The next day many people took to the water at a Quay Fair in large numbers (from
Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt 1900).
At Saint Just and other mining areas young miners would set shallow charges of gunpowder to light at Midsummer. Lands End fields where blessed at Midsummer by running around them with flaming torches (from
Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt 1900). Cattle where blessed by passing burning brands of gorse over their backs by people walking sunwise around them (from
A Calendar of Country Customs
by Ralph Whitlock 1978. This book has other Midsummer West Country lore in it, but is still in copyright, so I shall not disclose it!).
There is a valley near Zennor where 'all the Witches of the West' where said to meat up at Midsummer, and on the evening before the Witches of Penwwith would light a fire on top of every rock till the whole valley was ablaze. Here it was supposed by some that they reaffirmed their pact with the Devil (from
Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt 1900).
Snakes where also given to gathering on Midsummer Eve, knotting themselves into a tight ball, which then formed a bubble and hardened. It this was found it was good luck for the finder, giving them prosperity (from
Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt 1900).
Midsummer was a particularly potent time of year for omens and charms of love.
One Devonian charm for both sexes was to go at midnight on Midsummer eve to the church and walk home slowly scattering hempseed and saying -
Hempseed I sow, hempseed I mow,
She (or he) that will my true love be,
Come rake this hempseed after me.
The young person would then look over their shoulder on own porch and would thus see their future spouse following them eating up the seed (from
Folk rhymes of Devon by William Crossing 1911)
.
The words to a Cornish version of the same charm ran thus -
" Hemp-seed I sow, Hemp-seed I hoe,"
(the action of sowing the seed and of hoeing it in, must be deliberately gone through) ;—
"And he
Who will my true love be,
Come after me and mow."
There is a danger, though, of standing in the Church porch on Midnight on Midsummer Eve (in Cornwall at least). One might witness each of the people who where to die that year passing you by. Invariably the last one would be you (from
Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt 1900).
Alternatively a young woman could reveal her lover initials by preforming a ritual with her shoes at midnight. First she would take her shoes and place them in a T shape and say -
I place my shoes like the letter T,
In hopes my true love I shall see,
In his apparel and his array,
As he is now and every day.
repeating this three times, each time reversing the shoes. Then she would take a bowl full of water and float face down lots of bits of paper, each with a letter of the alphabet upon it. On waking in the morning the initials of her lover would be revealed.
If this fails she can brake an egg white into a tumbler of water at noon on Midsummer's Day and divine from the form it takes who is her lover.
If this also fails she waits till the first new moon after Midsummer and say -
All hail, new moon, all hail to thee !
I prithee, good moon, reveal to me
This night who shall my true love be;
Who he is, and what he wears,
And what he does all months and years.
Back in Cornwall another spell deployed by a young woman was to (in silence) take off her shift, wash it, turn it inside out and hang it in front of the fire. At midnight she would see her future husband at midnight turning it the right way out (from
Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt 1900).
 |
| The evening Midsummer sun fingers its way across Dartmoor - If you wish to use my photos please attribute this blog, thanks! |
In Devonshire a young woman would pick a full blown rose blindfolded on Midsummer day at the strike of twelve. This she folded in white paper and kept it till Christmas Day. Miraculously it would still be fresh and she could place it on her bussom, her future husband being compelled then to pluck it from her (from
Devonshire And Other Original Poems by Elias Tozer 1873). A similar custom occurred in Cornwall, the only difference being that she need not be blind, only travel backwards it to the garden. The rose was then sewn into a paper bag, and worn to church on Chistmas Day. Rather more gently the rose could then be requested, as well as simply taken (from
Popular Romances of the West of England by Robert Hunt 1900).
This all sounds quite raunchy to me - open roses represented the full flower of womanhood, as opposed to the budding rose of the virgin, while plucking a flower can be synonymous with 'deflowering'...
To me at least midsummer is the fullest time of year, the year is a like a young mother, the first lush harvests coming in, the fruits swelling and the days long. May day and the childhood joys of spring are behind us and the old wise autumn time of full cupboards and contented reflection is yet to come. This seems to fit with the strong West Country connections of Midsummer, full roses and predictions of love and marriage!
One only need look to the rhyme of John Barleycorn, collected in the West Country, to see the potent adult strength of Midsummer -
"...There he remained till midsummer,
And looked both pale and wan ;
Then Barleycorn he got a beard,
And so became a man..."
 |
| Midsummer on Dartmoor - If you wish to use my photos please attribute this blog, thanks! |
by R N Worth 1875)]
Some rights reserved by Number Six (bill lapp) http://www.flickr.com/photos/blapp/387550396/sizes/o/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. 
