podcast

17. Summer Solstice Special (Holiday Series #5)

 

June 15, 2025

 

Listen to Anthro.mp3

Summer Solstice Special (Holiday Series #5)

*embed*

Join Sophia and Claire in the fifth installment of our holiday series as they explore the history and varying cultural celebrations of the Summer Solstices and Midsummer.

Source:

Other:

List of 2025 United States Midsummer Celebrations: https://swedesinthestates.com/guide-midsummer-celebrations-across-the-u-s/#google_vignette 

Transcript:

Claire: Hello friends and welcome back to Anthro mp3. We’re students from UMass who love anthropology and AnthroHub is a website we help to run that’s full of all things anthro. So make sure to check it out to look at some incredible blog posts and creative works made by students from our school and others.

My name is Claire and I’ll be one of your hosts for today’s episode. 

Sophia: And I’m Sophia, your other host for today. 

Claire: So today’s episode as part of our holiday series is about the summer solstice. You may remember that last year we released an episode about the winter solstice, and although these are two sides of the same astronomical coin, they represent very different beliefs in the cultures that celebrate.

To avoid being too redundant, we will only briefly touch on subjects that we already discussed in the winter solstice episode such as sun worship. So if you want to know more about those, you should definitely go back and listen to that episode ’cause I think it’s a good one. That being said, let’s get started.

So the summer solstice, which actually takes place two times a year. Stick with me here, I know it sounds a little counterintuitive, describes the day when the sun is at its northernmost point in the northern hemisphere, or its southernmost point in the southern hemisphere. I think a lot of people forget, especially because documented celebrations of the summer solstice are concentrated in the global north, that there are two summer solstices.

Basically when the Southern Hemisphere is experiencing its summer Solstice, those of us in the north are experiencing our winter solstice.

Sophia: So a fun little astronomical slash geographical fact for those who may be interested. During the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice, the sun shines directly over the Tropic of Cancer, a line of latitude that runs parallel to the equator at roughly 23.4 degrees north. 

During the Southern Hemisphere summer solstice, the sun shines directly on the tropic of Capricorn, which is roughly 23.4 degrees south of the equator. The area that lines between these two latitudes is known as the tropics, and if we want to get even more specific, the summer solstice occurs at an exact time too. This year, 2025, the sun will reach its northernmost point on June 20th at 1:41 PM Eastern Standard Time in the United States, and it occurs at this time, no matter where in the world you are.

So the sun’s peak time might be in the middle of the night for some people, or even the next day for others. The same applies in the Southern hemisphere where the solstice will take place on December 21st at 4:21 AM Eastern Standard Time.

Claire: And we’ve talked before a bit about how the discrepancies between solar or lunar calendars and the standardized Gregorian calendar result in the shifting dates of holidays.

So this is why the northern summer solstice can fall on June 20th or 21st. And if you wanna hear more about the math of holiday timing, refer to our episode on the Lunar New Year. Emily and I spoke a good bit about the different rules surrounding the timing, and we have some interesting sources linked to Anthro Hub on that episode that are great supplements to continue learning about the specifics of the calculations behind it all, but onto what I personally find to be the most exciting part, the celebrations and the history.

So where all in the world is the summer solstice celebrated Sophia?

Sophia: So a lot, a lot of places. Um, it is more commonly celebrated in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern. However, that’s not to say there are no celebrations in the South. Australia has a festival called Midsumma, which takes place from January 18th to February 8th in 2026, and that is the celebration of queer lives and culture.

In Brazil, there’s a Solstice Festival called Festa Junina believed to be carried over from European colonization that takes place in June, hence the name, and is more closely related to the Feast Days of certain saints, particularly of St. John, who we will talk about later.

Claire: I think it’s interesting that Festa Janina, a quote unquote “summer solstice festival” actually takes place in the winter in Brazil, but the date is based on the Northern Hemisphere’s calendar.

Australia, like you said, has its actual summer solstice around the end of December and the pride celebration midsumma takes place in January and February when the sun is the strongest and the days are longer and warmer and they’re experiencing, you know, sort of their true summer weather.

Sophia: Yeah. It is pretty neat.

So most people trace the origins of summer solstice festivals to Northern Europe, and in many cases that would be correct. The two festivals mentioned above take inspiration, although each in unique ways from northern summer solstice festivals, but other cultures have originated their own rituals of celebration around the solstice.

In North America, there is an indigenous festival known as the Sundance, which is the most sacred ritual of the Plains Indians. It has been practiced primarily by tribes in the Upper plains and Rocky Mountain, especially the Arapaho, Arikara, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Crow, Gros Ventre, Hidatsa, Sioux, Plains Cree, Plains Ojibway, Omaha, Ponca, Ute, Shoshone, Kiowa, and Blackfoot tribes.

It is usually practiced around the time of the summer solstice and can last from four to eight days. This festival celebrates renewal of the tribe, people, and the earth itself, with offerings made to honor the life-giving son and the creator gods.

Claire: And it’s a very intensive ceremony. Rituals vary from one celebration to the next. Some are very small with just a few individuals, and some involve many dancers in a very large gathering, usually, but not always. The dance involves piercing the chest of a dancer with wooden or bone skewers, which would be tied with raw hide to a pole. Other times the dancer will pierce their back and attach it to a heavy buffalo skull.

Either way, the goal for this certain practice is for the piercing to pull the flesh from their bodies as part of the dance. If the piercings have not been ripped away by the end of the dance, elders will go through and cut the remainder off safely. After this physically grueling process. The dancers are looked after by Holy Men and women in the medicine tent,

Sophia: And it’s important to note here that the history of the Sundance was fraught in the United States. It was criminalized in 1883, along with countless other sacred rituals in an effort to eradicate indigenous culture and remained illegal until 1934. The dance was obviously still practiced during its prohibition and in an act of defiance against their occupation, the illegal celebrations would often overlap with the 4th of July. If you’re interested in learning more about the Sundance, be aware that since the Lako Summit V in 1993, non-native individuals are heavily discouraged from witnessing or interfering with the ceremony. However, in the 1950s, the Kanai Nation in Alberta, Canada allowed their Sundances to be filmed and was made into a movie called Circle of the Sun, so if you’re interested, go and watch that.

Claire: Dancing in general is actually a very common form of worship and ritual surrounding the summer solstice. We see it in Scandinavian and other Northern European celebrations, and it is a big part of Midsummer Festivals as well. So, Sophia, would you mind explaining a bit about what the term Midsummer actually references?

Sophia: So it means pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It is the middle of the summer, AKA mid-summer. Now, astronomically speaking, the summer solstice is the beginning of the summer, but the solstice and the equinoxes don’t always align with the changing of the seasons on an agricultural level, especially in Northern Europe where the term originated.

Midsummer is an anglicized name of the Swedish Midsommar. In Finnish Danish, Norwegian names, Juhannus, Jonsok or Sankthansaften, and Sankt Hans Aften—respectively, are all rough translations of St. John’s Day. And this is where things get kind of interesting. So early Christians would often adapt pagan festivals to Christian theology in order to ease or incentivize conversion.

And this is a repeated pattern through time. Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine Day all have a history of pre-Christian celebrations, and it would make sense if you believed that to be true of midsummer as well, but you might actually be wrong.

Claire: Yeah. I know that we’ve talked a bit before about, you know, for example, Roman Empire era Christian Martyrs being the basis for a lot of Valentine’s Day celebrations and Christmas and other holidays that are still celebrated today.

And a big part of their continued celebration is the Christian conversion incentive throughout the years. So why wouldn’t that necessarily be true of midsummer too.

Sophia: So it ties back to a very old misconception. So Sir James George Fraser, a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist who many contemporary scholars cite in their work believed that midsummer festivals were fundamentally pagan.

He drew upon none other than the brothers Grimm, who besides collecting fairytales for their books, also documented the cultural variations of the German provinces they traveled to. Summer fires were common in Germany, which the Grimm brothers recorded in multiple locations, although at different times, neither of which coincided with the summer solstice.

Fraser made the connection between these and the worship of the sun, which is observed during the winter solstice, a celebration of the unconquered sun. However, Sandra Bullington of the University of Glasgow demonstrates that Jacob Grimm, the author of Deutsche Myth, while acknowledging that fires lit around the changing of the seasons more closely aligned with the spring and fall were almost certainly pagan, the Midsummer Fires appeared to be of a Christian origin having traveled from Italy. Norse mythology also shows a glaring absence of Midsummer festivals in their annals. The Ynglinga Saga by Snorre Sturlason, written in 1225, details the more ancient rituals still practiced in Trondheim after the introduction of Christianity. Stoorlassun writes “in inner Trondheim, almost all the folk are heathen and it is their custom to hold a blood offering in the autumn and then bid winter welcome, another at Midwinter, and a third on a summer’s day when they bid summer welcome. The sacrifice was made to welcome the summer, not mark its decline as it would be in the summer solstice and this appears to be minimal interest in the summer solstice in pagan times. This was also noted by Mediterranean scholars who from 600 to 400 BCE, while searching for the “ultima thule” or farthest point in the world, were fascinated by the midnight sun in areas close to the Arctic circle, but made no mention of festivals related to it.

There are no records of a summer festival in Germany until the seventh century, and none in Scandinavia until the first millennium when the converted king Olav Tryggvason allowed the feast day of St. John to be a drinking holiday.

Claire: Okay? So, uh, there’s one name that we’ve brought up a couple times, and that’s St.

John. Who exactly is St. John?

Sophia: So let’s get to him now. So John the Baptist, not to be confused with John the Apostle was a prophet who saw visions of the final judgment and baptized people who repented in preparation for the afterlife. He was eventually beheaded for speaking out against King Herod, but it’s his birthday that’s more important to our discussion, more than his death date. He was actually a cousin of Jesus and his birthday falls exactly six months before him, according to the Bible. So roughly June 24th. Being an important figure to Christianity, his feast day is also important, and while many Christians might celebrate the holiday with chaste reflections, many, many more, let loose. The poet Ovid recalled an egregious hangover he acquired after the celebrations in Rome. 

Claire: Oh, the, the, the important things are getting documented here. 

Sophia: Yes, yes. The hangovers. Um, so the king I mentioned earlier, Olav Tryggvason, who I mentioned before, took inspiration from this holiday to Christianize the people of Trondheim by offering to them the opportunity to sacrifice on the summer solstice, so on St. John’s day. When he arrived, his men far outnumbered the people of Trondheim. And he said, if you want to sacrifice somebody, how about your nobles? So given the option between sacrificing themselves or converting to Christianity, Christianity suddenly appeared to be a much better alternative.

Um, and that’s how it kind of got started in Norway.

Claire: That’s really interesting. It’s. Very interesting, especially to see how, you know, when given that option, of course, Christianity becomes… 

Sophia: not so offensive. 

Claire: Yeah, exactly. Um, that doesn’t explain as much some of the other modern traditions. Where do we get the flower crowns, the may pole, the, the magic from, if not from Pagan traditions?

Sophia: Well, as Christianity has a history of taking pagan holidays and making them Christian. The inverse also appears to be true. St. John’s Day and the summer solstice do coincide with in northern climates the beginning of the harvest season. This association between the solstice and the harvest proliferated beliefs around the day’s capability to provide connection with the earth, fertility and good fortune.

One of the most famous traditions along these lines are love spells. The two most common are placing seven flowers under one’s pillow, or looking to a well at midnight to see visions of one’s true love during the solstice. And I know people who have tried both. 

Claire: That is adorable. That’s, I think the romance of it all is so sweet. But what about the Maypole?

Sophia: So the records aren’t entirely clear, but it’s believed to be added around the 1500s, which is certainly old, but not as ancient as we might have thought. 

Claire: Right. 

Sophia: But interestingly enough, the misunderstanding about the Pagan origin of the holiday has actually encouraged Neopagan movements to revive these traditions.

Claire: Oh, and, and you see that today in some of the ways and places that mid-summer and the summer solstice are celebrated. So, um. We’re gonna get a little bit more into the, the celebrations, the festivities of it all now, which is really cool. And I do wanna start by looking at the Swedish tradition. 

Many Swedes do travel to the countryside to celebrate with their families, but having said that, if you’re a foreigner and you don’t necessarily know anyone in Sweden to celebrate with, you won’t necessarily be left out. Large cities like Stockholm host public celebrations that last several days and the Skansen Open Air Museum is one of the hosts of these celebrations, and they actually provide materials and education on traditional activities like wreath making and folk dancing. Further out into the Stockholm Archipelago, you’ll find islands like Grinda and Sandhamn that also host large celebrations. If the big festivities aren’t as much your thing. There are a lot of other festivals hosted for visitors around the country where skiing events are hosted in the far north, for example, and boat racing events are held in the more central countryside.

From there, if we move just a bit west along that peninsula where we find Sweden, we do run into Norway. Um, there is certainly an aspect of cultural relation that is. Inevitable when two countries share a border, but Norway doesn’t actually officially recognize midsummer as a holiday like Sweden does. We still see folk celebrations, however, hosted at public museums and other common spaces.

Traditionally, an animal effigy is set on fire in the fjord waters of Sukkerbiten in Oslo. In folklore, fire symbolizes the sun’s strength at its peak and acts as a cleanser that drives away dark forces and evil spirits.

Sophia: And it makes sense why fires are taken so seriously during the celebrations. Um, fun fact, the world’s largest open air fire was built by the residents of Norway’s Ålesund in 2016 for Midsummer. And in Norway, Midsummer is also a popular time for weddings and as the connection with love.

Claire: Yes. That can, that connects back to the, the romantic, the romantic aspect of it all, which again is so sweet. It’s something that I really love. Um, and it’s just very impressive the sheer size of that open air fire that, uh, Norway was able to create.

And again, I also like that it’s become popular for romance and weddings since going back to that point that we were making earlier, the solstices represent the cyclical nature of the sun and the life cycle of the cosmos. And I just find it to be so romantic because it kind of aligns with the theory of marriage.

Sometimes symbolizing, undying love just as the sun and its warmth and life are undying, at least in the human perception of time, and the traditions definitely do make sense since the summer solstice is the sun’s strongest moment in the sky before the days begin to grow shorter again. And we travel onwards towards the winter, creating huge fires in the spirit of representing and almost supporting the sun is really cool and really sweet.

Sophia: Yeah, the relationship between the summer and winter solstice is so interesting. Like Sandra Billington, whose research I mentioned earlier, pointed out the summer solstice contains an interesting contradiction because it sort of represents the defeat of the sun as the days will eventually shorten and cede to winter.

Ancient Scandinavia didn’t tend to celebrate this holiday probably because it portended hard days to come, but other celebrations like the Sun Dance embraced this sort of shift, um, and used it as an opportunity to give gifts to the life-giving sun. And nowadays in Scandinavia, it’s sort of a callback to traditional culture, which I think is beautiful.

Claire: I completely agree, and we can see the celebration itself representing this age old human reliance upon and trust in, again, the cyclical nature of the sun and the seasons, no matter what hemisphere we may be in. It’s an interesting modern day connection to the agricultural roots of sedentary human occupation, but that’s a topic to further explore another day. 

For now, I want to keep exploring some of the celebrations around the world. For example, if you spend time in England during the solstice, make sure to check out Stonehenge. The stones are built to align with the summer and the winter solstice, so you can watch the sun rise behind the northeast heel stone of the structure during the summer solstice. Archeologists have actually found a hole which may suggest a past presence of a partner stone for the heel, which, uh, the positioning would have. Perfectly framed the sunrise. And though we don’t know exactly what the purpose of Stonehenge was when it was built, it very clearly aligns with the movements of the sun and had impressive amounts of energy and precision put into it.

Uh, so nowadays people gather at Stonehenge every year to watch the sun and celebrate the solstice, and you could even listen to some services and speeches on the solstice by modern day Druids. Stonehenge isn’t the only stone circle that we see. Uh, there are others mostly found in the British Isles and France that also reflect the relationship between our ancestors and the routine and movement of the sun.

These late neolithic and early bronze age circles of stones all aligned with the sun in ways clearly purposeful. Though again, archeologists and researchers today do remain unsure of the exact purpose of the structures. I personally like to ruminate on it a little bit, and I think that it was likely a calendar that doubled as ceremonial or religious grounds. Almost like an open air temple, but I, of course, am not very well educated on the matter. It’s all just personal speculation.

Sophia: Well, it is definitely really interesting to see and speculate on what past humans accomplished and created based on these traditions and natural occurrences that are still celebrated today.

If we move east out of England, but stay in the Northern Hemisphere. So we’re still looking at the summertime that we in the US are used to. We come across Latvia, which has some very cool Solstice celebrations. In the capital of the country, Riga, there are a lot of public festivals and celebrations, that the travelers and locals alike can partake in.

One known as Jāņi is celebrated from the 23rd to the 24th of June and places a lot of emphasis on nature, which you see a lot in these festivals. Plants picked during midsummer are believed to have healing properties and the ability to ward off evil spirits while bathing in the solstice day’s morning dew is thought to preserve youth.

Claire: I find that really interesting because plants, of course, cannot thrive without the sun itself, and plants in general tend to symbolize rejuvenation and the lifecycle, especially in folklore and literature, so those traditions really relate to a lot of other sun worship we’ve been talking about when looking at the history and continued celebration of the solstice.

Um, if we look at Spain in Barcelona and throughout Catalonia. Midsummer is celebrated from the evening of June 23rd through to the following day. It is the Feast of St. Joan or Joan of Ark, as I think she’s more commonly known. As a Solstice celebration. It does mark the beginning of summer, and so the events revolve around symbols we have brought up and will continue to bring up in this episode, namely fire, but also water and herbs. Again, we’re back to the plants. Spain’s folklore aligns with Latvia’s here as the holistic properties of herbs are said to multiply on this night. Fires line the streets of Barcelona and fireworks are set off to celebrate the light and the warmth of the sun, plus they’re of course a gorgeous spectacle.

In Iceland, we also see some plants being thought of as healing. First of all, some celebrations today take place inside glacial caves, thermal springs, and in the capital city of Reykjavik. The background of these festivities stem from Icelandic folklore, which suggests that the line between the worlds as we know them blurs during the summer solstice. Animals have the ability to speak or even turn human and plant wise, a roll in the wet grass is thought to heal diseases. This is again, similar to the Latvian lore of bathing in the morning dew actually, and it’s cool to see how lore from all over the world connects in these different ways.

It brings up some interesting thoughts and questions for me, and, uh, if this is something that you guys, the listeners, are interested in, by the way. We actually have an episode that introduces comparative mythology and goes a bit more in depth about connections between myths and legends and lore of different cultures, so definitely check that out if that’s something that you find cool.

Sophia: Yes, definitely check out all the episodes if you have the time.

Claire: So true, so true. Just binge watch ’em. Or binge listen. 

Sophia: Absolutely.

So while I was researching for this episode, one of the coolest celebrations that I had never even heard of before was the Austrian tradition surrounding the summer solstice because it very clearly relates back to the history of St. John’s Day, like we talked about earlier, and also incorporates this element of fire. In Tyrol, residents cover the Tyrolean Alps with candles and bonfires from the German border in the north to the Italian border in the south. And this is known as the sacred heart fires, and it’s a Herz Jesu tradition. Herz Jesu translates to “Heart of Jesus”, which dates back to about 200 years ago when the region was threatened by the onslaught of Napoleon.

Originally, these fires were viewed as an oath sworn to the sacred heart of Jesus, to protect Tyrol from French invasion. Today it is a much more festive and low stakes local mountaineering project with associations climbing up and lighting these fires in beautiful designs on the mountains. And it’s just, you see this most beautiful display of commitment to this belief and of their resistance to French occupation,

Claire: Which is just gorgeous, especially from a historical sense and watching how humanity remembers its past conflicts and its past victories and celebrations. It’s really interesting. To move back over slightly more Western for a second, Alaska also has summer solstice festivals, and what’s interesting about Alaska is that due to its position on the globe, the Earth’s tilt in the summer, uh, Alaska has some of the longest days in the world since the Arctic Circle tilts directly towards the sun.

So with 22 hours of daylight, there’s an excess of time to celebrate the longest day of the year on the solstice. Tthere are half and full marathons hosted for locals and visitors alike, where you can take on some of Anchorage’s most challenging trails. There’s also actually fishing derbies and midnight sun skiing available to participate in, if that’s more your thing.

Most popularly, though, especially among the locals, is a 3,510 foot hike up flat top mountain where solstice celebrators get a gorgeous view of the sunlight over the distant Denali Massif. And I imagine that must be just absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, stunning.

Sophia: Well, and I’m absolutely sure of that.

And those of us who are like me, sort of more relaxed, less outdoorsy people, there’s also a midnight sun baseball game in Fairbanks if you wanna watch them and they play through midnight.

Claire: Oh, that sounds so interesting. And again, I imagine that must just be such a unique experience and something that’s really fun and kind of gorgeous and almost mystical.

’cause you know, that’s not exactly a time or setting that we’re used to, so having something fun like a baseball game must be a really interesting scenario to experience that through. In China, there are solstice celebrations that mark the height of yang energy as in yin and yang, where Yang is light as makes sense with the summer solstice being the time when the sun is most prominent in the cosmos.

The solstice was celebrated much more in the past when the ancient Chinese engaged in earth and sun worship to express gratitude for each year’s harvest. But the solstice isn’t celebrated as commonly or as intensely today, especially compared to midsummer celebrations that are unrelated to the solstice.

These midsummer festivities are timed based on the Chinese lunar calendar, and I just wanted to quickly mention a certain festival, even though it again isn’t technically related to the solstice, just because it is really iconic and widespread and beautiful.

Sophia: It is really beautiful. I mean, some of the celebrations of it are just so ornate and thoughtful.

And the holiday is also called the double fifth holiday because it falls in the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, so usually may or June in the Gregorian calendar, which does sometimes approach the summer solstice. And it does align with some of the cyclical patterns that we’ve been talking about because it marks the decline of the yang period of light and of growth, and the beginning of the yin period of decay and of darkness.

Claire: That’s really interesting, seeing the connections between that with, uh, the sun and the moon and all of that lore there. The Midsummer Festival that I really wanted to sort of talk a little bit more in depth about is the Dragon Boat Festival, which is celebrated across mainland China as well as in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and other places with large Chinese communities.

Long boats decorated with brightly colored dragon heads and motifs, and paddled by generally 18 to 22 people are raced. This tradition began more than 2,500 years ago in southern China. A drummer sits below the dragon head on the bow of each ship and keeps a beat to help the racers pace themselves and stay motivated. Racers and spectators alike feast and drink after the main event. 

To come back to the actual Solstice celebrations, Canada hosts one of the largest solstice festivals in North America. The Summer Solstice Indigenous Festival is typically held over a span of four days in Vincent Massey Park, which is south of downtown Ottawa.

It attracts up to around 40,000 visitors, and it is a celebration of the Inuit First Nations and Metis people. Over the days of the event, workshops, shows and competitions educate visitors on indigenous traditions from powwows to cooking to music. I do also wanna bring our focus back a little closer to home, uh, to close out our conversation about all these really fun and unique celebrations.

So, Sophia, I know that you were able to find some interesting local celebrations. Uh, for those of you who don’t know, UMass Amherst is one of an alliance of Western Massachusetts colleges that are all very geographically close to each other. And therefore these colleges share resources and collaborate. This is called the Five College Consortium and we call our general location the five college area. Again, Sophia did some great research on festivals in this area for those listeners who are a bit more local to us.

Sophia: Yeah. So first and foremost, I wanna bring up the Scandinavian Midsummer Festival, which takes place this year, 2025, on June 21st at Sac Park in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.

This is probably the biggest festival that people have access to in the five college area and boast traditional Swedish food, singing and dancing. It should be a great time. Um, and then for those of you in other places across America, there are also some big festivals that I’ll quickly shout out to. We can also link these on our website.

Notably, we see some celebrations in big cities like Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, New York, and a bunch of other towns and cities across the country. And again, we’ll have these linked in our website. If you’re interested in joining in.

Claire: And speaking of all these celebrations, I do want to just chat a bit as we’re closing out about your personal Midsummer, traditions, and celebrations. I know that you and I, uh, off microphone have had a little bit of back and forth about how you actually celebrate midsummer with your family and that’s not something that I have really experienced personally. Uh, so I would really love it if you could share a bit about your family’s traditions and celebrations.

Sophia: Uh, so yeah. When I was a kid, I celebrated midsummer with my family and neighbors. My grandmother was very proud of her Swedish heritage, and I would often share her traditions, um, like curing gravlax, which is sort of a cousin to the locks you would eat on a bagel. Um, eating sill or pickled herring or wearing a crown of candles on Santa Lucia Day, which is a story for another episode. Um, but I felt a very strong connection to my Scandinavian roots through her, something that was reinforced by my finnish neighbors, and I actually called them in preparation for this episode, and we had the chance to reminisce on some very precious childhood memories.

Claire: I love that!

Sophia: Yeah, it was really great talking to them. Shout out to my neighbors. You’re also a source on this episode. Um, but yeah, so together we would throw a party with traditional foods like pickled herring, boiled new potatoes with chives or fresh dill and sour cream, and seasonal fruits like strawberries.

And I get why pickled fish might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Uh, I personally struggle with Kalles Kaviar, which is salted cod eggs in a squeeze tube. 

Claire: Huh 

Sophia: Um, but new potatoes with cold sour cream on a hot summer’s day, I think is as good as it gets.

Claire: I, I definitely believe that. That sounds delightful.

Sophia: Um, so I grew up in the Florida suburbs where flowers that we wouldn’t be yelled at for picking were scarce and the Scandinavian population was also fairly small, but we still made flower crowns with daisies and danced around imaginary maples. And some years we would also have a small fire in the backyard in celebration, although I wasn’t usually allowed to stay up till midnight.

Claire: Oh.

Sophia: Um, and Midsummer is also very close to my birthday, so it always kind of felt like a pre-party for me.

Claire: Absolutely. It sounds really fun, just like a truly joyous occasion. Uh, but I do have to ask, what are your thoughts on the movie Midsommar?

Sophia: That’s a can of worms. 

Claire: So, real quick, for those listeners who haven’t seen the movie, spoiler Alert, um, Midsommar is a movie from 2019 about an American woman traveling with a group of her boyfriend’s guy friends to Sweden to observe a rural midsummer celebration.

What unfolds is a festival full of mayhem, murder, and some of the most disturbing imagery I have ever seen in a horror movie.

Sophia: Yeah. So I actually watched Midsommar with my dad, which was not a great idea. I would not personally recommend watching that film with your close family members. Um, and he hated it.

I didn’t have very strong feelings at the time, but I understood why people, particularly in Sweden, were very upset about it. There’s been a lot of sort of accusations of like cultural inaccuracies, a lot of the costumes are really simplified versions, they’re not really true Swedish traditional clothing or foods.

Um, you do have a history of human sacrifice in Scandinavia, but that’s not really what Midsommar is about and so people had this whole idea that Midsommar is like that ‘We need to go to Sweden now because that’s how they’re celebrating it’ and what I’d have to say about that is like, you’re not gonna learn about the culture of a country, especially from a horror movie, which takes a lot of license with traditions and, and cultural features to, and they blow them outta proportion in order to make a more interesting story.

So what I’ll say is, you’re not gonna learn about Sweden from watching Midsommar just as much as you’re not gonna learn about Catholicism from watching The Exorcist. 

Claire: I think that’s a really great comparison. 

Sophia: Um, and nowadays I think people are able to sort of take it in context. They can appreciate a very interesting story and sort of like compartmentalize the cultural inaccuracies. However, my finished neighbors still hate it.

Claire: Makes sense. And it’s, you know, that’s something interesting where movies and literature and media can, they have the potential to villainize the history of certain cultures. 

Sophia: Yeah, and I find that can definitely be the case. I did enjoy the movie, but I totally understand anyone who doesn’t.

Um, and seeing as we are running out of time, I think this is kind of an odd but good note to end on. So thank you all for tuning into our show today. Another thanks to our team members and our collaborators with AnthroHub, especially our tech crew. To stay connected, you can find us on Instagram @anthro.mp3.

You can also find our sources, transcripts of each episode, and more on our AnthroHub show notes. I was one of your hosts today, Sophia joined by our other host, Claire and our tech crew. If you enjoyed this episode, you’ll love our next one where we’ll be starting a new series of episodes all about evolution.

Keep an eye out on our Instagram for future updates on shows, specials and events. Catch us next time and have a great day, friends!

Back to the Podcast

Pin It on Pinterest