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At the time of summer solstice, about June 22,
the sun is directly overhead at noon at the Tropic of Cancer.
In the Northern Hemisphere the longest day and shortest night
of the year occur on this date,
the sun appears to stand still in the sky
*its noontime elevation* seem to change from day to day.
Mid-Summer is said to be a mystical time when the forces of magic are
increased and fairies roam our world.
As portrayed in Shake-speare's
A Mid-summer Night's Dream,it is a night of romance and confusion.
It is also the time when the powers of light are at their grandest.
So if births are associated with the solstices,
when do the symbolic deaths occur?
When does Goronwy slay Llew and
when does Llew in turn slay Goronwy?
When does darkness conquer light or light conquer darkness?
It must be at the two equinoxes.
At the autumnal equinox,the hours of light in the day are eclipsed
by the hours of darkness.
At the vernal equinox,the process is reversed.
Also, the autumnal equinox, called 'Harvest Home',
is already associated with sacrifice,
principally that of the spirit of grain or vegetation.
In Welsh mythology, there is a startling vindication of the
seasonal placement of the sun god's death,
Llew is the Welsh god of light, and his name means 'lion'.
(The lion is often the symbol of a sun god.)
He is betrayed by his wife Blodeuwedd,
into standing with one foot on the rim of a cauldron and
the other on the
back of a goat.
It is only in this way that Llew can be killed, and Blodeuwedd's lover, Goronwy, Llew's dark self,
is hiding nearby with a spear at the ready.
But as Llew is struck with it, he is not killed.
He is instead transformed into an eagle.
Putting this in the form of a Bardic riddle, it would go something like this:
Who can tell in what season the Lion (Llew),
betrayed by the Virgin (Blodeuwedd),poised on the Balance,
is transformed into an Eagle?
Astrologers are probably recognizing,
The sequence is astrological and in proper order:
Leo (lion),
Virgo (virgin),
Libra (balance), and
Scorpio (for which the eagle is an alternative symbol).
The remaining icons, cauldron and goat, could symbolize
Cancer and Capricorn, representing summer and winter,
the signs beginning with the two solstice points.
So Llew is balanced between cauldron and goat,
between summer and winter,
on the balance (Libra) point of the autumnal equinox.
This is the answer to a related Bardic riddle.
Repeatedly, the 'Mabinogion' tells us that
Llew must be standing with one foot on the cauldron and
one foot on the goat's back in order to be killed.
But nowhere does it tell us why. Why is this particular situation the
ONLY one in which Llew can be overcome?
Because it represents the equinox point.
And the equinox is the only time of the entire year when light (Llew)
can be overcome by darkness (Goronwy).
It should now come as no surprise that when it is time for Llew to kill Goronwy
in his turn,
Llew insists that Goronwy stands where he once stood while he (Llew)
casts the spear.
This is no mere vindictiveness on Llew's part.
This is the only time when
Goronwy can be overcome.
Light can overcome darkness only at the equinox --
this time the vernal equinox.
Midsummer is a celebration of the sun god at his zenith,
a crowned king on his throne.
He is at the height of his strength and
still 1/4 of a year away from his ritual death at the hands of his rival.
The spear and the cauldron have often been used as symbols for this holiday it
is easy to see why.
Sun gods are virtually always associated with
spears and
the midsummer cauldron of Cancer is a symbol of the Goddess in her fullness.
It is the time of the year for an outdoor celebration.
May yours be magical!}}
{adapted from Mike Nichols at Sacred Text.com}
Fires traditionally are lighting the hills on this festival.
The fires are traditionally kindled from fir and oak
with assorted herbs throne upon the flames.
Besides lighting for the nighttime festivities,
the fires where thought to ward off ill-meaning spirits and
it was thought lucks to jump over them.
Other sources of flame would include lanterns carried
by revelers "walking the march,"
The most common symbols of the summer solstice to Neopagans are
The spear of the sun god and the bountiful cauldron of the goddess.
Colours associated with the solstice are blue (for water),
green (for growing plants),
and yellow (for the sun.)
Foods include all summer fruits and vegetables,
ale and mead.
- Herbs often used on the holiday are
- mistletoe,
- heartsease,
- lavender, and, of course,
- Saint John's Wort.