Midsummer Day & Saint Jean Baptiste Day

The summer solstice usually falls on June 21 and is an astronomical event, the longest hours of daylight in the year when the Sun is highest in our sky at noon. However, Midsummer’s Day marks the halfway point in the calendar year and was one of the old Quarter Days: Lady Day (March 25), Midsummer’s Day (June 24), Michaelmas (September 29) and Christmas (December 25). Generally speaking, these were not hugely popular dates as they were often when rents, rates and taxes were due — and our tax year still starts on Lady Day, although the new Gregorian calendar shifted the date from March 25 to April 6.

The eve of Midsummer’s Day used to be celebrated with fires lit on hilltops in praise of the Sun. The medieval church translated this pagan festival into St John’s Day, and in folklore this was a day for a long-range forecast, when it was said that rain falling on St John’s Day gave warning of a wet harvest to come. All the more reason to hope that today turns out dry and sunny.

Christianity adopted the sun-worship holiday as the one dedicated to John the Baptist, but centuries later, pagan traditions still remain an integral part of the celebration.

Every year, on the 24th of June, all Québécois get together with friends and family to celebrate their Fête Nationale (National Holiday); la Saint-Jean-Baptiste. It is a privileged moment to celebrate our identity, our pride of what we were, of what we are and of what we dream of becoming. But what are the origins of this great national celebration?

The event originated more than 2000 years ago, in pre-Christian Europe, as the pagan celebration of the summer solstice. It was originally held on the 21st, but with the arrival of Christianity, it transformed into Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, and moved to the 24th. The two events did have several things in common after all. Both celebrated the symbol of "light"; the sun of the summer solstice and Saint-Jean-Baptiste who opens the way for the light of Jesus-Christ. The ancients used to light a great bonfire on the evening of the 24th to honour the sun, a tradition that continued into the Middle Ages.

Midsummer Day was celebrated on June 24th in honor of St. John the Baptiste who baptized our dear Lord Jesus. Festivals were held to enjoy the warmer days and nights. It was said that if women picked seven different varieties of wildflowers and tucked them under their pillows, dreams would fill their minds with visions of their future husbands. Young people would dress up and go out dancing, drinking, singing until the wee hours of the night. Some said that it was a night that water was turned into wine and the angels were hovering close to the faithful. Religious folks might visit a holy spring to give praise to dear St. John the Baptiste. Many considered Midsummer's Day Eve an auspicious time to wed.

The folk tradition says the skies are opening on Midsummer night, and herbs and animals are gaining miraculous powers. The event marks the midsummer, but people used to say that it is the feast of the good fairy-ladies, who protect the crops and people’s homes. Young girls take part in a special ritual, pleaching circlets and then throwing them over the house in order to find out when they are going to marry. One of the local legends says that if the flowers stay bound to the roof, the girl will marry that year, provided that they wash their face in the morning with fresh dew.  The legend also says that those who work today will be cruely punished by nature. “Disobeying this feast, the good fairy-ladies turn into bad ones who hackle people and steal the cattles’ milk”, explains a folk expert.