At the end of June, always on a Friday around the 23rd, Swedes celebrate Midsummer Eve. This it is a big event. It is said this is the real Swedish National Day... and if the rock carvings found in Sweden are interpreted correct, midsummer traditions may have been around for 3000 some years. This is a popular day for wedding. In north the sun is not setting, so there is no reason really why one should sleep.
This festival was originally celebrated to welcome the arrival of summer in the hope of bountiful harvest, but in the Christian tradition it is celebrated to commemorate John the Baptist.
During this day people make a flower chaplet to wear. Before dinner a maypole is built with birch twigs and typical local flowers. This is a focal point of midsummer dances and games.
For dinner we have pickled herring in all kinds of flavors, boiled potatoes, beer and snaps. Strawberries or fresh fruit is the most popular for dessert. People sing typical snaps songs. After that we dance around the midsummer pole. The small frogs' dance is a funny game that is amazing to the foreigners visiting. The songs have fun gestures and moves to them.
The young girls use to pick seven different flowers during silence and put them under their pillow when they go to sleep and doing so they hope to dream about whom they are going to marry. This works only at this night...
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