St. John's Eve



San Juan cae en junio.
--Alejandro Casona, La Dama del Alba

Friday night was St. John's Eve. 

St. John's Eve is hardly an event of any significance in the Northwest Corner.  I'd never heard of it until my freshman year in college.  As part of the drudgery of studying Spanish, we were required to read a Spanish play called La Dama del Alba; the fourth act begins on St. John's Eve, with bonfires burning.  I still have the book, but remembered nothing of the story until I read, just now, the Wikipedia synopsis.

From a religious point of view, the celebration marks the vigil of the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, celebrated the following day on June 24.  But in Spain, and other Hispanic countries, St. John's Eve is a de facto celebration of the summer solstice -- the longest day of the year.  It is celebrated by the lighting of bonfires.

My only personal acquaintance with these fiery celebrations dates from a trek I was doing in Peru many years ago.  We were sitting around in the late evening twilight, following dinner, when we began to notice fires sprouting all over the hillsides around us.  We nervously asked our guide if we were in danger from wildfires, and he assured us that the locals were simply celebrating St. John's Eve.  I had a flashback, at the time, to my college-days reading of La Dama.

St. John's Eve isn't merely an Hispanic celebration.  In Ireland, it is called "Bonfire Night":

In some rural parts of Ireland, particularly in the north-west, Bonfire Night is held on St. John's Eve, when bonfires are lit on hilltops. Many towns and cities have "Midsummer Carnivals", with fairs, concerts and fireworks, around the same time. In County Cork in southwest Ireland the night is commonly referred to as bonfire night and is among the busiest nights of the year for the fire services.

Similar celebrations are held in Denmark, parts of England, the Baltic states, Scandinavia, France ("Fête de la Saint-Jean"), Italy, Quebec, and Poland. 

Bonfires are a common, central part of the celebration in all these countries.

As a celebration of the solstice, the celebration makes more sense the farther north one goes.  In Scandinavia, the days are impressively long at the summer solstice.  In Spain, not so much.  And in Peru, where I first observed St. John's bonfires, just south of the equator, the solstice is virtually meaningless.

The United States stands curiously apart from this widespread tradition -- just as it has, until recently, from worldwide soccer fanaticism -- with the odd exception of Louisiana, where the night marks a Voodoo celebration held on New Orleans's Bayou St. John.

When I was in northern England a couple of weeks ago, the sky was dark for less than five hours each night -- from about 11 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.  Here in Seattle, our nights are slightly longer, but we are the northern-most major city in the continental United States.  We have every reason to light bonfires, but we don't.

But sitting out on my back deck at 10:30 p.m., observing the final dying illumination of twilight, I share the wonder of people elsewhere at the seasonal changes.  Maybe tonight I'll light a match, and hold it up, as one small, token, belated celebration of St. John's Eve.  And a reminder of those distant days when I could actually read, haltingly, a Spanish play.