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A MIDSUMMER CELEBRATION
by Mike Nichols (a.k.a. Gwydion)
In additionto the four greatfestivals of the PaganCeltic year,
there are four lesser holidays as well: the two solstices, and the
two equinoxes. In folklore, these are referred to as the four
'quarter-days' of the year, and modern Witches call them the four
'Lesser Sabbats', or the four 'Low Holidays'. The Summer Solstice is
one of them.
Technically,a solstice is an astronomicalpoint and, due to the
precession to the equinox, the date may vary by a few days depending
on the year. The summer solstice occurs when the sun reaches the
Tropic of Cancer, and we experience the longest day and the shortest
night of the year. Astrologers know this as the date on which the sun
enters the sign of Cancer. This year it will occur at 10:57 pm CDT on
June 21st.
However, since most European peasants were not accomplished at
reading an ephemeris or did not live close enough to Salisbury Plain
to trot over to Stonehenge and sight down it's main avenue, they
celebrated the event on a fixed calendar date, June 24th. The slight
forward displacement of the traditional date is the result of
multitudinous calendrical changes down through the ages. It is
analogous to the winter solstice celebration, which is astronomically
on or about December 21st, but is celebrated on the traditional date
of December 25th, Yule, later adopted by the Christians.
Again, it mustbe remembered that the Celts reckoned their days
from sundown to sundown, so the June 24th festivities actually begin
on the previous sundown (our June 23rd). This was Shakespeare's
Midsummer Night's Eve. Which brings up another point: our modern
calendars are quite misguided in suggesting that 'summer begins' on
the solstice. According to the old folk calendar, summer BEGINS
on May Day and ends on Lammas (August 1st), with the summer solstice,
midway between the two, marking MID-summer. This makes more logical
sense than suggesting that summer begins on the day when the sun's
power begins to wane and the days grow shorter.
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Although our Pagan ancestors probably preferred June 24th (and
indeed most European folk festivals today use this date), the
sensibility of modern Witches seems to prefer the actual solstice
point, beginning the celebration at sunset. Again, it gives modern
Pagans a range of dates to choose from with, hopefully, a weekend
embedded in it. (And this year, the moon is waxing throughout.)
As the Pagan mid-winter celebration of Yule was adopted by
Christians as Christmas (December 25th), so too the Pagan mid-summer
celebration was adopted by them as the feast of John the Baptist (June
24th). Occurring 180 degrees apart on the wheel of the year, the
mid-winter celebration commemorates the birth of Jesus, while the
mid-summer celebration commemorates the birth of John, the prophet who
was born six months before Jesus in order to announce his arrival.
This last tidbit is extremely conspicuous, in that John is the
ONLY saint in the entire Catholic hagiography whose feast day is a
commemoration of his birth, rather than his death. A generation ago,
Catholic nuns were fond of explaining that a saint is commemorated on
the anniversary of his or her death because it was really a 'birth'
into the Kingdom of Heaven. But John the Baptist, the sole exception,
is emphatically commemorated on the anniversary of his birth into THIS
world. Although this makes no sense viewed from a Christian
perspective, it makes perfect poetic sense from the viewpoint of Pagan
symbolism.
Inmost Pagan cultures, the sun godis seen as split between two
rival personalities: the god of light and his twin, his 'weird', his
'other self', the god of darkness. They are Gawain and the Green
Knight, Gwyn and Gwythyr, Llew and Goronwy, Lugh and Balor, Balan and
Balin, the Holly King and the Oak King, etc. Often they are depicted
as fighting seasonal battles for the favor of their goddess/lover,
such as Creiddylad or Blodeuwedd, who represents Nature.
The godof light is always born at the winter solstice, and his
strength waxes with the lengthening days, until the moment of his
greatest power, the summer solstice, the longest day.
And, like a look in a mirror, his 'shadow self', the lord of darkness,
is born at the summer solstice, and his strength waxes with the
lengthening nights until the moment of his greatest power, the winter
solstice, the longest night.
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Indirect evidence supporting this mirror-birth pattern is
strongest in the Christianized form of the Pagan myth. Many writers,
from Robert Graves to Stewart Farrar, have repeatedly pointed out that
Jesus was identified with the Holly King, while John the Baptist was
the Oak King. That is why, 'of all the trees that are in the wood,
the Holly tree bears the crown.' If the birth of Jesus, the 'light of
the world', is celebrated at mid-winter, Christian folk tradition
insists that John the Oak King was born (rather than died) at
mid-summer.
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It isat this pointthat I mustdiverge from the opinionof Robert
Graves and other writers who have followed him. Graves believes that
at midsummer, the Sun King is slain by his rival, the God of Darkness;
just as the God of Darkness is, in turn, slain by the God of Light at
midwinter. And yet, in Christian folk tradition (derived from the
older Pagan strain), it is births, not deaths, that are associated
with the solstices. For the feast of John the Baptist, this is all
the more conspicuous, as it breaks the rules regarding all other
saints.
So if births are associated with the solstices, when do the
symbolic deaths occur? When does Goronwy slay Llew and when does
Llew, in his turn, slay Goronwy? When does darkness conquer light or
light conquer darkness? Obviously (to me, at least), it must be at
the two equinoxes. At the autumnal equinox, the hours of light in the
day are eclipsed by the hours of darkness. At the vernal equinox, the
process is reversed. Also, the autumnal equinox, called 'Harvest
Home', is already associated with sacrifice, principally that of the
spirit of grain or vegetation. In this case, the god of light would
be identical.
In Welshmythology inparticular, thereis astartling vindication
of the seasonal placement of the sun god's death, the significance of
which occurred to me in a recent dream, and which I haven't seen
elsewhere. Llew is the Welsh god of light, and his name means 'lion'.
(The lion is often the symbol of a sun god.) He is betrayed by his
'virgin' wife Blodeuwedd, into standing with one foot on the rim of a
cauldron and the other on the back of a goat. It is only in this way
that Llew can be killed, and Blodeuwedd's lover, Goronwy, Llew's dark
self, is hiding nearby with a spear at the ready. But as Llew is
struck with it, he is not killed. He is instead transformed into an
eagle.
Puttingthis in theform of aBardic riddle, itwould go something
like this: Who can tell in what season the Lion (Llew), betrayed by
the Virgin (Blodeuwedd), poised on the Balance, is transformed into an
Eagle? My readers who are astrologers are probably already gasping in
recognition. The sequence is astrological and in proper order: Leo
(lion), Virgo (virgin), Libra (balance), and Scorpio (for which the
eagle is a well-known alternative symbol). Also, the remaining icons,
cauldron and goat, could arguably symbolize Cancer and Capricorn,
representing summer and winter, the signs beginning with the two
solstice points. So Llew is balanced between cauldron and goat,
between summer and winter, on the balance (Libra) point of the
autumnal equinox.
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This, of course, is the answer to a related Bardic riddle.
Repeatedly, the 'Mabinogion' tells us that Llew must be standing with
one foot on the cauldron and one foot on the goat's back in order to
be killed. But nowhere does it tell us why. Why is this particular
situation the ONLY one in which Llew can be overcome? Because it
represents the equinox point. And the equinox is the only
time of the entire year when light (Llew) can be overcome by darkness
(Goronwy).
It should now come as nosurprise that, when it is time forLlew
to kill Goronwy in his turn, Llew insists that Goronwy stands where he
once stood while he (Llew) casts the spear. This is no mere
vindictiveness on Llew's part. For, although the 'Mabinogion' does
not say so, it should by now be obvious that this is the only time
when Goronwy can be overcome. Light can overcome darkness only at the
equinox -- this time the vernal equinox.
So Midsummer (to me,at least) is acelebration of the sun godat
his zenith, a crowned king on his throne. He is at the height of his
strength and still 1/4 of a year away from his ritual death at the
hands of his rival. The spear and the cauldron have often been used
as symbols for this holiday and it should now be easy to see why. Sun
gods are virtually always associated with spears (even Jesus is
pierced by one), and the midsummer cauldron of Cancer is a symbol of
the Goddess in her fullness. It is an especially beautiful time of
the year for an outdoor celebration. May yours be magical!
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