Some escapist nonsense about the Feast of St John the Baptist.

 Avoiding the midsummer madness that is afflicting the world at present, here’s some less serious midsummer nonsense, concerning a DAY. I have often commented that there seems to be a DAY for everyone and everything. Today, or rather tomorrow, is no exception.

It’s the 23rd of June, St. John’s Eve. Tomorrow is his feast day. Most saints’ DAYs commemorate their death or something significant that they were supposed to have done. St John’s Day celebrates his birth, well, the supposed date of his birth. According to the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist was born 6 months before Jesus. So assuming Jesus was born on December 25th, then John’s birthday was six months before that. 

Of course, experts in such matters have since said that Jesus was almost certainly not born on the 25th of December. I seem to remember reading that setting Christmas at that date meant the old pagan celebration could be subsumed into a Christian one. Similarly, June 24th was the date of the summer solstice on the old Roman calendar: cue another bit of combining the old and the new religions. It’s also why so many places have all sorts of festivities on that date, or rather straddling the 23rd to 24th of June. 

We once arrived at Porto airport on the 23rd of June and were amazed to see small bonfires lit at intervals along the rout the tram took from the airport into the city. There were also lots of people bopping each other on the head with squeaky plastic hammers! Wikipedia tells me that St John's night in Porto (Festa de São Joãn do Porto) has been described as "one of Europe's liveliest street festivals, yet it is relatively unknown outside" Portugal. There you go! 

Then there was the year I accompanied a group of A-Level Spanish students on an exchange visit to Galicia and at least one of them expressed concern about being expected to jump over a bonfire. When asked for advice on this, I was able to tell them that on no account should they do such a thing as I had signed a paper saying they would not be taking part in dangerous sports. 

Here’s another bit of interesting nonsense: Mussorgsky’s composition “Night on Bald Mountain” was originally titled “St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain”, based on the story “St John’s Eve” by Gogol. It seems he completed the work on the 23rd of June 1867 - there’s a little coincidence!

St John is the patron saint of Florence and his “day” has been celebrated there from medieval times when St John's Day was "an occasion for dramatic representations of the Baptist's life and death" and "the feast day was marked by processions, banquets, and plays, culminating in a fireworks show that the entire city attended." He’s also the patron saint of Genoa and Turin. In Genoa and coastal Liguria it is traditional to light bonfires on the beaches on Saint John's Eve to remember the fires lit to celebrate the arrival of Saint John's relics to Genoa in 1098. (It’s amazing how far those biblical figures’ bones travelled!) Since 1391 on the 24th of June a great procession across Genoa carries the relics to the harbour, where the Archbishop blesses the city, the sea, and those who work on it. 

In the process of reminding myself about the feast of good old St John, I discovered a bit of linguistic stuff: 

“in worshipp of seinte iohan the people woke at home & made iij maner of fyres. On was clene bones & no wode & that is callid a bone fyre. A nothir is clene wode & no bones & that is callid a wode fyre fore people to sitte & to wake there by.

—John Mirk, Liber Festivalis, 1486”

A rather more modern, but undated, version reads: 

“In the worship of St John, men waken at even, and maken three manner of fires: one is clean bones and no wood, and is called a bonfire; another is of clean wood and no bones, and is called a wakefire, for men sitteth and wake by it; the third is made of bones and wood, and is called St John's Fire”.

Now I had always assumed, like many people according to Webster’s dictionary, that the word “bonfire” was vaguely connected to French, the idea being that it was a “good” fire. But Mr Webster confirms that it began as a “bone fire”. 

That’s enough mildly superstitious nonsense for one day. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!