How Should Heathens Celebrate Midsummer?

It has been a very different Summer so far compared to last year. Here it has been very wet and rainy unlike the drought conditions of last year. Everything is a verdant green. It is easy to get caught up in the moment this time of year. It feels like even though you are looking outwards the pace slows to a crawl. It is okay to just sit on a riverbank lost in contemplation, or sit out on a patio with a cool drink and some watermelon and talk through the afternoon and late into the evening.

I always find it easy to write about Jol or Sigrblot. I would find it easy to write about Winter Nights as well, but I always get so busy that time of year it is hard to find the time. Right now though, I want to write about Midsummer … and it just won’t flow. I have all these ideas in my head, all these sources piled beside me that I keep looking at over and over. The words don’t want to jump to the page as I type. So here goes nothing…

There are 3 Heathen holidays attested to in the sources: Sigrblot, Jol, and Winter Nights. If we look at where they are in the year they are like 3 spokes on a 4-spoked wheel. But where is the 4th? If we look at Rune Rasmussen’s book The Nordic Animist Year we see the Solstice listed in June on the 20th or 21st and then Midsummer Eve as June 23rd. If we skip ahead to the 20th of July it is listed as Old Midsummer. Which one is correct?

I am going to say first, that from a historical perspective the Solstice isn’t Midsummer. The Midsummer blot occurs in the middle of the summer. And if we are looking at the bipartite year that means it falls directly between Sigrblot (the beginning of summer) and Winter Nights (the beginning of winter) in the same way that Jol is the celebration of midwinter. If we look at it from a lunisolar perspective this means that Midsummer falls on the full moon after the new moon after the Summer Solstice, which places it most often on the full moon in July. 

There is a scholarly article by Sandra Billington (the full title of which will be in my sources) about Midsummer, but in it she mistakenly assumes the Solstice to be the same as Midsummer. The problem with this is primarily that her argument is that Midsummer was not celebrated in pre-Christian Scandinavia. However, she does make a good argument about why the Solstice was not celebrated in Pre-Christian Scandinavia. The reason is the sun would be so bright for so many long days around the Solstice that it would be impossible to determine exactly when it fell. Additionally, she argues that Pre-Christian Scandinavians would not celebrate the sunny days getting shorter because that would mean winter was going to return and make their lives more difficult.

In the time just after the Conversion she notes that Midsummer is marked on primstavs, but there are no recorded examples for festivities happening around this date. She notes that the Allthing occurred in Iceland 9 weeks after Sigrblot, before the Conversion, and that it lasted 2 weeks. But it was not a festival. After the Conversion it fell closer to the Solstice.

Sandra Billington’s argument is that the Solstice celebrations in Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England came from Rome and Greece after the Conversion. 

In my opinion, she is making a big mistake with assuming that Midsummer was the Solstice and also what was being celebrated at these festivities. 

If we look at The Lunisolar Calendar of the Germanic Peoples by Andreas Zautner, we see a different picture. He interprets the reference of the midsummer blot in the Olfassaga Tryggvarssonar as proof that there was the Allthing and then later on in the summer there was a midsummer blot that took place. (Other sources including Sandra Billington have read this as the King tried to create a new celebration called midsummer blot as a way of tricking the Icelanders into converting.) If we follow this interpretation then we see that midsummer was some sort of blot (sacrifice) and there was a feasting element. Sounds like a Heathen holiday! 

Zautner also notes that there is attestation in the Saga of the Norwegian Kings to there being 4 pagan summer feasts that were abolished and that it seems that the midsummer festivities have been renamed St. John’s Day and moved to June 24th. This is in line with how other Heathen holidays were renamed and shifted dates after the Conversion.

When midsummer is mentioned in the Sagas it often refers to haying, seafaring, as well as weddings. It seems likely that this midsummer celebration was to do with either seafaring or the beginning of the harvest season. 

There seems to be another name for midsummer in the Yngvars Saga, which is sumarmagni, roughly translating as “summer might” or “summer strength.” You can translate it more loosely as high midsummer. 

In The Nordic Animist Year we see that Old Midsummer according to the Norwegian tradition occurred 28 days after the Summer Solstice, roughly in the time period one might expect with the lunisolar reckoning. 

Interestingly, the midsummer poles in Sweden were not traditional to Pre-Christian Scandinavians, and came to Sweden in the 16th century. 

So how should we celebrate Midsummer in Modern times? I think that is up to the individual or group. Some Heathens celebrate on the Solstice and celebrate Midsummer as the longest day of the year. Some Heathens celebrate like the Swedish midsummer. And some Heathens are trying to revitalize the Old Midsummer celebrations in some way. 

 If we want to revitalize Old Midsummer, how do we go about it? Well, it seems that most Heathen holidays have some key elements in common: a blot, a feast, fire, and usually drinking or sumbel. Since it is probably a harvest festival of some kind we want to think which deities we might sacrifice to in blot. Freyr seems likely. Perhaps Thor, since it is the season for thunderstorms as well and rain is needed for crops. Perhaps also Sol or Baldur as solar deities. Sif, for the golden grain of harvest. With these pieces we can begin to build up this holiday and the ritual that would have occurred. 

Of course, in Modern times we must always consider if what we build up from antiquity is still relevant to us today. Do most of us farm? No. But do most of us benefit from the harvest? Yes. What about the ritual elements? Do they make sense to your practice? Some Heathens may find themselves faced with fire bans this time of year. Perhaps you can use candles or enclosed lanterns instead. Others may prefer to have a dry ritual. Why was drinking important to the elder Heathens? It is two-fold. Alcohol was valuable, so it was a show of prosperity that bonded communities. Also, drinking in sumbel was about building camaraderie among people. It lowered inhibitions and made people open up to each other. So you can use a non-alcoholic beverage in sumbel but you need to create new ways of showing prosperity through what you offer in blot and you need to find other ways to make participants comfortable and willing to open up with each other and create that sense of camaraderie. What about the blot itself? We know in blots it was often animal sacrifices, or even human. There is no reason for there to be human sacrifice in modern Heathenry. As for animal sacrifice, it is only meaningful if you or your tribe raised the animal. You have to be giving something up that is of value. If that value isn’t there then offer something else to the gods instead. It is about the value of the item, not what it is. As for feasting, I can think of no reason why you would not include this in your Midsummer celebration, but if you choose not to then I’ll leave that one to you to figure out. 

Further Reading: 

The Lunisolar Calendar of the Germanic Peoples by Andreas E. Zautner

The Nordic Animist Year by Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen

“The Midsummer Solstice as it was, or was not, Observed in Pagan Germany, Scandinavia, and Anglo-Saxon England” by Sandra Billington

Image Source:

This image was created by the AI at craiyon.com and depicts “Sif with wheat and golden hair”