The ancient solar festival of Litha, Midsummer, Feill-Sheathain, Alban Heruin or St. John's Eve as it is variously called, takes place on or about June 21, at the time of summer solstice. This is the longest day of the year, the day on which the sun is farthest from the Equator, when the power of the Sun is at its zenith and our solar system's own star enters the sign of Cancer. After Litha the days will begin to grow shorter again until Yule (the Winter Solstice), which falls around December 21.The word Litha derives from the Anglo-Saxon word Liða which means "moon". In the old Anglo Saxon calendar, the word Litha appears among the names used to describe the sixth and seventh months of the Anglo-Saxon calendar: ærra Liða (early Litha or July) and æfterra Liða (late Litha or August). This lesser sabat or low holiday to sacred to horned gods such as Cernunnos, the Green Man, and the Oak King; to sun gods such as Baldur and Lugh, and to fertility or vegetation gods such as Tammuz. Litha is sacred to goddesses who represent creative power in maturity such as Aphrodite, Astarte, Cerridwyn, Demeter, Diana, Freya, Hera and Vesta.
Like the other seven celebrations on the Wheel of the Year, Litha has been adopted or appropriated by the Christian Church and it has been linked to a Christian saint's day, the feast of of John the Baptist which takes place on June 24th. In a fine example of coincidence or synchronicity, the flower which is most associated with Litha is the elegant bloom of the St. John's Wort which flowers in June. The association of Litha with St. John is curious indeed. John, the harbinger of Christ, has often appeared in medieval art in the form of a horned man or a satyr, further illuminating ancient ties between Litha or St. John's Eve and the horned gods of old. In earlier times, St. John was often referred to as "the Oak King", and as the "voice crying in the wilderness" he has profound and irrevocable ties to forest and woodland. Thus, behind a venerated Christian saint stands the ancient figure of the Green Man or horned lord, the pagan deity and wild man whose foliate face adorns many an old Christian church in Europe.
Humanity have been celebrating Litha and the triumph of light since ancient times. On the Wheel of the Year Litha lies directly across from Yule, the shortest day of the calendar year, that cold and dark winter turning when days begin to lengthen and humanity looks wistfully toward warmth, sunlight and growing things. Although Litha and Yule are low holidays or lesser sabats in the ancient parlance, they are celebrated with more revel and merriment than any other day on the wheel except perhaps Samhain (my own favourite). The joyous rituals of Litha celebrate the verdant Earth in high summer, abundance, fertility, and all the riches of Nature in full bloom. This is a madcap time of strong magic and empowerment, traditionally the time for handfasting or weddings and for communication with the spirits of Nature. At Litha, the veils between the worlds are thin; the portals between "the fields we know" and the worlds beyond stand open. This is an excellent time for rites of divination.
How does one celebrate Litha? First and foremost, one celebrates the day with fire, a bonfire to be precise. The eight festivals or spokes on the wheel of the year are all associated with fire, each in a different way. Perhaps more than any other, the festival of Litha is associated with fire because at this time the Sun is at its zenith, and Litha fires have been a prominent feature of celebrations since ancient times. The fires of Litha are the flames of sun worship, protection, healing, purification and blessing. In ancient times, all Europe was alight with bonfires on the eve of Litha or St. John's Eve, and it was traditional for communities to gather around the Litha bonfire to celebrate and participate in rites of summer. Linguists are not sure of the origins of the word bonfire. It may be that the word simply signifies a fire in which bones were burned, and this was certainly done in Litha bonfires until medieval times. Then too, the word may have derived from the word "boon", signifying a gift or good will. The word bonfire may also derive from the Danish word baun meaning a beacon or bane fire. Certainly there are many recorded examples of midsummer blazes kindled to ward off evil and disease. The concept of fire as an element which purifies and protects appears to be natural to humanity, and kindling bonfires seems particularly appropriate at a time of the year in which humanity were most likely to contract plague, typhus and malaria, and at which livestock and crops are most vulnerable to disease. It was traditional to burn nine different herbs in the Litha bonfire, mugwort, plantain, watercress, cock-spur grass, mayweed, stinging nettle, apple, thyme and fennel. In addition to St. John's Wort and mistletoe, the plants of Litha include roses, heather, elder, oak and mugwort.
Those who celebrated Litha did so wearing garlands or crowns of flowers, and of course, their millinery always included the yellow blossoms of St. John's Wort. The Litha rites of the ancients were boisterous communal festivities with morris dancing, singing, storytelling, pageantry and feasting taking place by the village bonfire and torch lit processions through the villages after dark. People believed that the Litha fires possessed great power, and that prosperity and protection for oneself and one's clan could be earned merely by jumping over the Litha bonfire. It was also common for courting couples joined hands and jump over the embers of the Litha fire three times to ensure a long and happy marriage, financial prosperity and many children. Even the charred embers from the Litha bonfire possessed protective powers - they were charms against injury and bad wweather in harvest time, and embers were commonly placed around fields of grain and orchards to protect the crops and ensure an abundant reaping. Other Litha customs included carrying an ember of the Litha fire home and placing it on one's hearth and decking one's home with birch, fennel, St. John's Wort, orpin, and white lilies for blessing and protection.
There was a time long ago when Litha was also a time of sacrifice, and correct observance necessitated the ritual slaying of a sacred king, not a lineage king in the modern sense, but a youthful male at the height of his beauty and creative power, one chosen from the community to symbolize the power of the sun god, the faith of the village and the creative principle which lies at the heart of life and the land. Crowned with roses and garlanded in myrtle, the sacred king enjoyed the favour of the midsummer queen or priestess and the adulation of his village for a full year, then he was ritually slain at Litha to ensure a bountiful harvest and the continued prosperity of the community. Later it became the custom to weave a wicker man or an effigy from reeds and grasses and burn it as a sacrifice it in the Litha bonfire.
While the association of St. John's Wort with Litha is a development of the Christian era, the same cannot be said of mistletoe, which has always been associated with Litha. Frazier's Golden Bough is sacred because it is in full bloom at this time, and the plant was commonly harvested at midsummer by Druids using a golden scythe. The Druid priesthood never allowed mistletoe cuttings to touch the ground, for to do so would have allowed the powers of the mistletoe to flow back into the earth. The Druids believed that mistletoe gathered at Litha had the power to open locks, to cure diseases and to act as a lightning conductor. Mistletoe gathered on the eve of Litha and placed under one's pillow had the power to endow a sleeper with lucid and prophetic dreams.
Although Litha may seem at first glance to be a masculine observance and one which focuses on Lugh, the day is also dedicated to the Goddess, and Her flowers are the white blossoms of the elder. The objects associated with Litha are the cauldron of Cerridwyn and the magical spear of Lugh, and both objects have strong associations with fertility: the cauldron as the vessel of life, and the spear as the fertilizing male principle.
Page Revised June 18, 2002
