It always seems a bit strange that we celebrate midsummer only two days after the summer solstice. This year feels particularly odd as summer has been a long time arriving in the northern hemisphere – only now are the winter woollies being put away and sunny summery clothes take centre stage.
The days are at their longest, the sun feels welcomingly warm and gardens that were held back by spring chill are now bursting into life as though making up for lost time.
Before the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752 St Barnabas Day fell close to midsummer and there’s piece of folklore that goes like this:
Barnaby bright, Barnaby bright
The longest day and the shortest night.
When St Barnabas smiles both night and day,
Poor ragged robin blooms in the hay.
Ragged robin is a wild flower of the hay meadows and haymaking is at its peak at this time of the year. Good weather is essential to ensure the hay is harvested in peak condition and stored dry for winter fodder. St Barnabas day marks the first day of haymaking – the old country saying was, ‘On the day of St Barnabas, put the scythe to the grass.’
The heat from the midsummer sun is thought to imbue herbs with their healing qualities so this is the day when they are gathered at dawn and then put to dry for use in simple herbal remedies or hung at doors and windows to ward off harmful spirits.
St John’s Day falls on 24th June and celebrates midsummer. There is an old belief that, ‘If the cuckoo sings after St John, the harvest will be late.’
Usually the cuckoo arrives in April, starts singing in the middle of the month and stops in late June – so there appears to be a grain of truth in the observation that if the cuckoo is still singing after midsummer then the season is certainly late and the harvest will be late too – potentially serious if it coincides with the less reliable weather of early autumn.
