Next: around 19 to 20 Jun 2027
Midsummer
Swedes raise a pole dressed in leaves and flowers and wear crowns picked from the meadow.
What happens
Swedish Midsummer Eve is the Friday that falls between 19 and 25 June, close to the longest day. In the morning people pick wild flowers and birch leaves, dress a tall pole with them, and raise it on the village green to dance around. Women and children, and many men, wear a crown of fresh flowers made that day. An old custom says that if you pick seven kinds of flower in silence on the way home and put them under your pillow, you will dream of the person you will marry.
The flowers
Also part of it, and being written: Trifolium pratense (Red clover, picked from the same meadows.).
More flowers and customs of Midsummer
DecorationOriginal text by the Phool desk, written with AI assistance. Background: "Midsummer" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Oxeye Daisy: Victor M. Vicente Selvas, Public domain, source
- Wreath: Олександр Майоров, Майкл Ендрюс, Світлана Буланова, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Maypole: Uploaded by Mikael Häggström, CC0, source
- Fern flower: Antoni Piotrowski, Public domain, source