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Tag: Folklore

St. John’s Eve Bonfires, Folklore & Fun

Just as you’ve recovered from your solstice hangover, here comes St. John’s Eve!

You can thank the Romans. They’re the ones who designated June 24 the summer solstice – hence, the discrepancy between the longest day (June 21) and Midsummer. The Romans gave us roads, aqueducts, and a legacy of midsummer debauchery. Why split hairs?

Later, as was so often the case with the placement of religious holidays, the Church figured out it had the highest probability of winning friends and influencing people if it diverted the stream of paganism, rather than outright dam(n) it. To this end, June 24 became the Feast Day of St. John. This worked out very nicely indeed, since St. Luke implies the birth of John the Baptist occurred six months before that of Jesus. Which reminds us: only 185 shopping days until Christmas!

On the eve of St. John’s nativity (observed), the night of June 23, good Christians celebrate as only reformed pagans can, with an understanding that everyone will be up to fulfill their religious obligations on the morrow. What happens on St. John’s Eve stays on St. John’s Eve.

For tonight, it will be a time for harvesting St. John’s Wort, with its miraculous healing powers. It will be a time for seeking the fern flower, which can bring good fortune, wealth, and the ability to understand animal speech. It will be a time for the lighting of bonfires against evil spirits, and even dragons, which roam the earth, as the sun again pursues a southerly course. And it will be a time when witches are believed to rendezvous with powerful forces, such as the Slavic demon Chernobog, who emerges from the Bald Mountain at the climax of Disney’s “Fantasia.” (Erroneously, the narrator, Deems Taylor, claims that it’s Walpurgis Night.)

Leaping over a bonfire is seen as a surety of prosperity and good luck. Not to light a bonfire is seen as offering up one’s own house for destruction by fire. The bigger the fire, the further at bay are kept evil spirits. The further the evil spirits, the better guarantee of a good harvest.

So get out there and cavort heartily under a strawberry moon!
Chernobog loves strawberry.

Leopold Stokowski conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in this Disney showstopper by Modest Mussorgsky:

http://www.cornel1801.com/disney/Fantasia-1940/film8.html

Happy St. John’s Eve!

June 23, 2021
Twelfth Night Christmas Traditions and Folklore

Once they have sufficiently recovered from New Year’s, a lot of people take down their Christmas lights and dismantle their trees. (On the other hand, too many seem to leave them up until spring.) After all, Christmas is past, right? Wrong!

December 5, the eve of Epiphany, is Twelfth Night – the Twelfth Day of Christmas – or is it? Well, it depends on when you start the count. Is Christmas Day the First Day, or should we begin counting the day after? The day after would make January 6, Epiphany (the Christian feast commemorating the visit of the three Magi to the Baby Jesus) the Twelfth Day, which would seem to make sense.

But is Epiphany the Twelfth Day, or should Twelfth Night, a night of reveling to mark the last day of Christmas, really to be observed on the eve of Epiphany, just as Christmas Night, in England anyway, is actually Christmas Eve? The Christian world is divided – and that is only taking into account the West!

Then there’s “Old Twelfth Night” (January 17), but that’s for another post.

In any case, according to tradition, it’s perfectly fine to still have the tree and lights up, but it is bad luck to keep Christmas decorations on display beyond Epiphany. Apparently it was the Victorians who first said so, as a signal that it’s time for everyone to get back to work. The Tudors, on the other hand, kept partying right on through February 1, the eve of Candlemas (the presentation of the Christ Child at the Temple in Jerusalem).

As for Shakespeare’s play, “Twelfth Night,” which would seem to have nothing at all to do with Christmas, it is a charming corollary of a season of merriment, masked balls, and misrule. The first performance took place on Candlemas, 1602.

We may not be able to come to a consensus on the Twelfth Day, but we can say with certainty that the night of December 5 marks the arrival of Befana the Christmas witch. Befana is the wizened crone who bestows gifts and happiness upon the good children of Italy. If the children are bad, they get a lump of coal. (If the family is poor, they get a stick.) It’s traditional to leave a glass of wine and a tasty morsel for Befana. In return, she will sweep the floors with her broom, symbolically sweeping away the problems of the old year.

Think about that when you worry that your tree is losing too many needles.

PHOTO: Make way for the Holly Man!

January 5, 2019
Krampusnacht The Eve of St. Nicholas Day

December 5. The Eve of St. Nicholas Day. Krampusnacht.

Centuries before parents reined in children with a gentle reminder that Santa knows whether they’ve been naughty or nice, recalcitrant young ones lay awake in a widening pool of sweat at the sound of distant cowbells, wondering if it was too late to repent.

On the night of December 5, St. Nicholas’ dark helper, the horned, hairy and horrendously long-tongued Krampus, emerges from his Alpine domain to dole out corporal punishment to deserving youngsters. This comes in the form of a sound beating with a switch and, in more extreme circumstances, the threat of abduction, being carried off in a basket and tossed into hellfire. For under-aged miscreants of yore, the clank of rusty chains and the dull clap of ponderous bells heralded the arrival of a world of pain.

Besides visiting homes and fulfilling his stern duty, Krampus ran the streets spreading fear amongst the populace and frightening off evil spirits. Perhaps as a backlash against the genial homogenization and commercialization of Christmas, the “Krampuslauf” has been experiencing a healthy revival in recent years, with alcohol-fueled hooligans prowling the streets in full Krampus regalia, often turning on the very crowds that have gathered to support them.

However, I have to wonder, with the precipitous increase in Krampus merchandise, and now the release of a major motion picture, if Krampus himself doesn’t risk losing his teeth. Can endorsements for Coca-Cola be far behind?

“A Krampus Carol” (incorporating a stop motion Krampus!):

Family-friendly segment on the Krampus Renaissance in Bavaria, produced by The New York Times:

A real, old-fashioned Krampuslauf:

Pretty good Krampus carol (full text when you click on “show more”):

Here comes Krampus:

Nicholas and Krampus play “good cop/bad cop” with Tobias:

Small child cowers behind door at 1:25:

Academy Award-winner Christoph Waltz explains Krampus to Jimmy Fallon:

The commercialization of Krampus:

Happy holidays!

December 5, 2015

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