Hyv�� juhannusta as we say in Finnish. Today and tomorrow we celebrate the light of the midnight sun and from this weekend onwards most of Finland will be on vacation.
Juhannus / midsummer is a pagan ritual and I don't think it's celebrated outside the Nordic countries. It includes having huge bonfires tonight and everyone gatheright together. The midnight is very special, lot of mystical spells are being done. For instance if you collect flowers from the medow and put them under your pillow, you will get to dream about the man you are going to marry. Or if you go to a lake or to a pond at midnight (naked) you will see your future husbands face in the reflection. All this applies to single women obviously 😉 But the midnight light is amazing everyhere in Finland at the moment. In certain parts of the country the sun does not set at all during the night and in other parts it dips below the horizon only for a couple of hours. So practically there is no night at all. 😊
Anyways, I wanted to share this with you, enjoy the summer everyone :bday:
The summer solstice is one of the quarter days of the Pagan year. Scotland is far enough north that you can still see the glow of the sun below the horizon for the few hours that it's gone, and it's never truely dark. I've never stayed up at the solstice since moving to London, I'm not sure what it's like down here.
Helsinki, the southernmost city in Finland is still much further up north than even the Orkney Islands. And the northernmost parts of Finland are higher than Alaska, so the effects of midnight sun are really powerful here. It is really surreal to be out in the middle of the night and see the sun...
[quote="LAuRA"]Hyv�� juhannusta as we say in Finnish. Today and tomorrow we celebrate the light of the midnight sun and from this weekend onwards most of Finland will be on vacation.
Juhannus / midsummer is a pagan ritual and I don't think it's celebrated outside the Nordic countries. It includes having huge bonfires tonight and everyone gatheright together. The midnight is very special, lot of mystical spells are being done. For instance if you collect flowers from the medow and put them under your pillow, you will get to dream about the man you are going to marry. Or if you go to a lake or to a pond at midnight (naked) you will see your future husbands face in the reflection. All this applies to single women obviously 😉 But the midnight light is amazing everyhere in Finland at the moment. In certain parts of the country the sun does not set at all during the night and in other parts it dips below the horizon only for a couple of hours. So practically there is no night at all. 😊
Anyways, I wanted to share this with you, enjoy the summer everyone :bday:[/quote]
my Anna but have done one of the two 😃
sound real nice, i hope you have a good Midsumer.....just watch out for the us elves and our sprites of the land. 😃
I read about the summer solstice in a book... "sweet dreams." It sounded very nice! I wish I could experience it... :roll:
there's nothing Happy about the summer here in SA :cry:
To tell you the truth it has been raining here most of the weekend and the temperature has been around +12 C, so nothing's perfect 😉
[quote="FOX HOUND"]there's nothing Happy about the summer here in SA :cry:[/quote]
the temperature in here is around 45C
I used to think that it never rains in SA or UE, or at least so I was told. Then I went to Dubai few years ago and... yes, it rained and we had to cancel a drive around the desert 😞
I live in the northern part of Sweden, we also have the midnightsun, hehe (Just couldn't let the Finnish people have it all for themselves 😉 ) We had rather fine, and for our latitud warm, weather, approx +20C in the day time. I also saw the midnightsun myself. It's always amazing 😃