Let’s start from the beginning. Big Bang created energy which clumped together as matter which clumped together into stars which clobbered together lighter atoms to make heavier elements. In a burst of rebellion, this heavy matter spread out during a super nova only to change its mind and start clumping together again as planets. On one such planet, self-replicating clumps of matter – life – got together to dance around a may pole and usually clump together, two and two, later on in the evening. This is called ‘Swedish Midsummer’.
Mid-what, you ask? Summer. We have summer because the earth rotates around its own axis. A hemisphere has summer when it leans towards the sun, but not because it is closer to the sun! If you are a defender of that tired old misconception then please stop confusing correlation with causation. Demeter’s custody of Persephone is a more believable explanation of summer than the relative distances of the hemispheres to the sun. In fact, the earth is five million kilometres – 392 earth diameters – closer to the sun in January than in June. The real cause of summer has to do with angles, but really, I’m here to talk about midsummer, not astronomy.
Midsummer started as a pagan fertility festival. The church tried to change it to become a celebration of St. John’s birthday. However, because the average Swede thinks of nothing but sex and alcohol in the height of summer, midsummer remains a pagan fertility festival.
If you are in Sweden during midsummer, get yourself invited to celebrate it with some locals. In recent years, there has been a rise in impostor-Swedes, so here is a helpful guide to know if you are at a genuine midsummer party.
- Check the available alcohol. The liquor should add up to at least half the bodyweight of the available guests. In addition, there must be snaps (spiced or flavoured vodka) available. You should be able to tune a metronome by the rate at which this is drunk.
- The food served must be new potatoes, at least five kind of soused herring and sour cream with chives. Since meatballs and prince sausage can be legally served at any Swedish festival, you might spot those too. Don’t be alarmed. You have not overslept and woken up at Christmas.
- There must be singing. Check the lyrics. If they are grotesquely rude, then you are in the company of proper Swedes.
- If there is a lake, there must be skinny-dipping. If you lack a lake, use a tub.
- There should be plenty of inappropriate flirting and coupling between people who should know better.
- In the garden, look for a large phallus adorned with leaves and flowers i.e. the maypole. The people jumping around it, imitating frogs, are Swedes.
- The next morning, check yourself. If an imp is redecorating the inside of your skull with a mallet, and if your humanity is aghast with horror at the thought of what you did last night, then you were at a proper Swedish midsummer party.
The above pretty much sums up my own midsummer.