TODAY has long been regarded as a very important date in the rural calendar. Not only is it Midsummer Day, it is also the feast day of St John the Baptist, while yesterday was the Eve of St John, Mugworth Digging Night, Need Fire Night and, of course, the Eve of Midsummer.
It follows that there were several celebrations on these days. In times gone by, various charms were practised last night to discover the name of one's future spouse.
Lads in Yorkshire would go on to the moors and attempt to gather spores from the bracken in the hope their magic could attract the girl of their dreams. This was by no means an easy task because they were not allowed to touch the spores by hand - they had to shake the bracken, usually with a stick, so that the spores dropped on to a white cloth or into a pewter dish. In some areas of the North, the pages of an open bible were substituted as the receptacle.
Some ardent lovers used a hazel twig to shake the spores into the receptacle, but this was very difficult. Bracken spores are tiny and the slightest whiff of wind would whisk them away, while an added hazard was that they had to be gathered in the darkness between 11pm and midnight.
In some areas, however, it was important that no artificial means were used to make the spores fall - they had to be allowed to fall of their own accord or the charm would not work.
Another fairly common belief was that bracken spores made the collector invisible and gave them power over all other living things. This curious notion was widespread across the whole of Europe, including England, with variations saying that the successful collector of bracken seed was also likely to find buried treasure or even a vein of gold lying beneath the surface of the earth. It seems there were many good reasons to go collecting bracken seeds on the eve of midsummer.
Another charm was effected by digging beneath the mugwort. This is a very common but inconspicuous plant which grows along our verges, beneath our hedgerows and on waste ground. It is rather like a miniature shrub with a somewhat dowdy appearance, but in July and throughout the summer it does produce attractive yellow flowers, growing to a height of between 2ft and 4ft (24-120cm). It has a strong scent, rather like that of a honeycomb, and for that reason it was considered magical.
On the eve of midsummer, men would dig beneath the roots because it was thought the mugwort produced a type of coal which made the possessor immune to things like lightning strikes, plagues and unsightly spots on the skin.
The secret was to find a mugwort root, dig it up and keep it preserved, although it must be said that some country folk used the plant as a substitute for hops in making a very tasty but somewhat bitter beer.
Among its other uses were making a stuffing for cooked geese or as a moth repellent in clothes! Some people would even burn the leaves because the scent fumigated a sick room. A most versatile plant.
This was not the only plant which lovers sought on midsummer eve. St John's Wort, whose leaves are so like those of a dandelion, was collected and hung near doorways and windows of houses in Yorkshire in the belief that it would protect the property and its inhabitants against evil of all kinds, including witches.
Young girls would also go out on this evening to collect hempseed, believing it would reveal the name of their true love.
Midsummer eve was also known as Need Fire Night. At the time, fire was a precious commodity even in the middle of summer because it provided heat, light and cooking facilities.
If the family fire was allowed to die out, it could be very difficult to get it going again, there being no such things as matches or fire lighters. So, on the eve of midsummer, fire was carried from house to house by teams of runners. They would light any fires which had been allowed to die out, but it was then the duty of the householders to make sure they continued to burn.
Midsummer Day was one of the year's quarter days when rents were due, while in Derbyshire it is a well-dressing day, although most wells are decorated earlier in the year.
Here in the North, however, it was the day to avoid cutting one's thistles - if you did, they would multiply to cause you further problems. The recommended time to cut them is July - "cut thistles in July and they will die", the old saying goes, "cut your thistles before St John, and you'll have two instead of one."
References to St John the Baptist remind us that King Herod gave a feast at which Salome pleased him so much that he would give her anything she wished.
She said she wanted the head of John the Baptist on a plate at table. King Herod therefore ordered the execution of the man who is now a saint.
That was two years before Christ's crucifixion, but his feast day continues to be celebrated on Midsummer Day.
Part of my daily walk is enlivened by a massive clump of red campions. These are among the most common of our wild flowers and yet they are so attractive and charming, adding a wonderful touch of colour to the landscape.
Each plant produces a wealth of large, dark green leaves and several stems bearing a number of deep pink flower-heads. These can grow up to 3ft (1m or so) and, because lots of roots occupy the same place, red campions can produce a dense bank of colour from late spring and well towards the end of summer.
They are related to pinks, which are so popular in our gardens, but their wild cousins include the ragged robin, bladder campion, white campion, maiden pink and many smaller plants including chickweed, stitchwort, soapwort and sandwort. Because the white campion can interbreed with the red, these flowers come in a variety of shades ranging from pure white to deep red via a pleasing pink.
One curiosity with the red campion is that the flowers have no scent, with some plants producing male flowers and others producing females. They can be distinguished because the males have ten stamens and the females none, although they have five styles. For the red campion to reproduce, therefore, male and female flowers are required in fairly close proximity to one another, with our wonderful hard-working insects ensuring the survival of these species.
One curious cousin of the red campion is known as the night-flowering catchfly or night-flowering campion. Its leaves are very similar in appearance to those of the red campion, but the catchfly's flowers are yellowish-green on the undersides. This is what can be seen during the summer days because these flowers do not open until dusk. As the sun goes down, they will open to reveal pinkish petals along with a very pleasant scent.
This perfume attracts night-flying insects such as moths and flies, but when they land on the flowers they find themselves stuck with a glue-like substance. This keeps them trapped long enough for any pollen to be transferred, but this is only a temporary hazard. They are soon able to release themselves, for the catchfly does not eat insects as do other plants such as the sundew and butterwort. Even so, some very small insects might be unable to free themselves which may give the impression the plant feeds on them. There is much to fascinate us along our highways and byways.
An elderly man was chatting to me this week and told me he'd had a rather restless night. "Ah was tewing and tossing all t'neet," he told me.
It's a long time since I heard the word tewing, but it was once in common use in the moors where I was reared. It means something more than manual effort or restlessness and, although the word is difficult to define, it seems to contain an element of worry or concern. Perhaps tewing relates to an active and worrying mind rather than a restless body?
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