Midsummer’s Day June 24th | Handfasting

Not many people realize that June 24th is Midsummer's Day.  Most believe
June 21st is the Midsummer Day - Wrong.

While the 21st is the summer solstice, the 24th is a quarter-day along
with: Lady Day on 25th March,
Michaelmas on 29th
September, and famously, Christmas on 25th December.

Midsummer's Day Jokes

How to Get to the Midsummer Festival?
A townie was looking for the Midsummer festival, he stopped and asked Tyler.
'Will this road take me to the Midsummer Day festival?'

'Oh no,' said Tyler.
'You'll have to go by yourself!'

Midsummer Strawberries
Farmer Woodman was driving his John Deere tractor along the road with a
trailer load of fertilizer.  Joe a little boy of eight was playing in
his yard when he saw the farmer and asked, 'What've you got in your
trailer?'

'Manure,' Farmer Woodman replied.

'What are you going to do with it?' asked Joe.
'Put it on my
strawberries,' answered the farmer.

Joe replied, 'You ought to come and eat a Midsummer feast with us, we put
ice-cream on our strawberries.'

Basket Case?
On Midsummer's Day two yokels were on the train heading homewards through
Somerset, England when one of them noticed some cows.

'What a lovely bunch of cows.' he remarked.
'Not a bunch, herd,' his
mate replied.

'Heard of what?'
'Herd of cows.'

'Of course I've heard of cows.'

'No, a cow herd.'

'What do I care what a cow heard. I have no secrets to keep from a cow.'

Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream

The other connotation for Midsummer Day is Shakespeare's Midsummer night's
dream.  Shakespeare builds on superstitions that this was a time of the
year when fairies were abroad.

St John's Day
Midsummer's Eve is also known as St John's Eve, particularly in Ireland.
In bygone times our ancestors would light fires on hilltops to celebrate, a
custom still celebrated today in southern hemisphere places like
Australia.

This St John is none other than St John the Baptist, hence he was born on
Midsummer's day, June 24th. Incidentally, this a good day to collect the St
John's Wort plant.

The Dumb Cake
Three girls would bake a cake in
silence, not an easy task!  If there was wind arise and cause a
rustling in the room, then if one of the girls looked over her shoulder they
would see their future husband.

One custom of the first Millennium was 'Handfasting'.  The idea was that
couples who had announced their engagement on May day would enter into a trial
marriage on June 24th.  This handfasting would last for a year and a day
and if all went they would then marry.

Midsummer's Day Story

The Happiest Days of the Year = June 20th -24th

Cliff Arnall has derived a mathematical formula which proves that mid-June is
the happiest day time of the year.   His result is due to a
combination of lighter evenings, memories of childhood summers and the prospect
of holidays, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Cliff, who is a psychologist and former tutor at Cardiff University, worked
out the equation:

"O + (N xS) + Cpm/T + He".

O stands for being outdoors, N is nature, S is socialising with neighbours
and friends, Cpm stands for childhood positive memories, T is the mean
temperature, and 'He' is holiday expectation.

However in that year (2008), his formula failed to take into account falling
house prices, rising inflation, stagnating pay rises or the fact that none of
the United Kingdom teams were in Euro 2008.

See also 'Blue Monday'.

Midsummer Is A Magical Time

Funny Superstitions, Bizarre Ideas, and Customs Connected with Midsummer

Will and Guy have read that almost all magic is more powerful at Midsummer

Midsummer dew has special healing powers.

• Young ladies wash their faces in it to make themselves beautiful; older
  people do the same to make themselves look younger. If you walk barefoot in
  the dew on Midsummer Day's morning, it will stop the skin from getting
  chapped. If you can bring yourself to skip naked through the dew in the
  night, then it, supposedly, will ensure fertility for the coming year.
• Shakespeare's Comedy - A Midsummer Night's Dream
  Nick Bottom (Weaver) wears a donkey's head.
• Herbs, especially St. John's Wort, gathered on Midsummer's Day and burnt
  on bonfires will keep livestock healthy and banish bad luck.
• If on Midsummer's Eve, you approach a fern leaf backwards, without
  looking, and, without touching the leaf, collect the seed then they have to
  power to make you invisible.
• The festival is still important to pagans today, including the modern day
  Druids who celebrate the solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. For
  many, the light of the sun on Midsummer's Day, is sacred.
• Mistletoe was and is, highly revered by the Druids. It is regarded as
  particularly potent when it grows on oak. Although it is more commonly
  associated with Yule and the Winter Solstice, it was often gathered
  ceremonially at Midsummer when it is regarded as being at the height of its
  powers.
• While 21st of June is the longest day, 24th of June has the latest
  sunset.  This is due to the elliptical orbit of the earth around
  the sun.  This orbit also accounts for why the 17th of June has the
  earliest sunrise.
• It was an old belief, in England, that one of the best times to see
  fairies is between twilight and midnight on Midsummer's Day.

Footnote:
Please send us your funny Midsummer Day
jokes, stories and pictures.