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Summer Solstice
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The Summer Solstice is the time of maximum
light - when the countryside around us revels in colourful and
fragrant splendour. This time is known in the Druid tradition
as that of Alban Hefin - 'The Light of Summer' or 'The Light
of the Shore'.
At Alban Hefin the spiral of the year has expanded to its widest
point and now the hours of light are as long as they will ever
be. After 21st or 22nd June, the sun's power will begin to wane
and the days grow shorter. The sun has touched the northernmost
point along the horizon and is about to embark upon the long
journey back south, ending at Alban Arthan, the Winter Solstice,
in mid-December in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern
Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice falls on 21st or 22nd December,
with the sun touching the southernmost point along the horizon.
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The Summer Solstice time was an event of tremendous importance
to the proto-Druids of the New Stone Age, who built a number
of magnificent megaliths aligned to the sunrise on this day.
In southwest England, the thread of tradition connects the 5,000-year-old
temple of Stonehenge with ritual activities through the Bronze
Age, the Iron Age, and into modern times. Today many modern
druid orders, including The Order of Bards Ovates & Druids,
gather here to watch the first rays of the sun shine above the
'hele stone.' Another great stone temple to the Summer Solstice
is at Callanish on the island of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides.
Here, four rows of stones lead into a circle from the four directions,
forming a Celtic cross in the landscape, and the stones form
an astronomical observatory aligned to the solstice sunrises
and sunsets, as well as to the equinoxes. Callanish is so far
north, the sky never actually darkens on a midsummer night.
This is also the case at the mysteriously beautiful stone circle,
the Ring of Brodgar, on Orkney, which was known for centuries
by local people as the Temple of the Sun, aligned as it is to
the midsummer sunrise.
In Cornwall and Wales, boys and girls, bedecked in garlands
of flowers, went dancing and spinning around the great fires.
Young men whirled flaming brands around their heads to form
sun-wheels, balanced blazing barrels on top of poles or performed
feats of daring such as jumping through the tall flames - perhaps
to encourage the corn to leap up too. When the flames died down
to glowing coals, dancers held hands and skipped through them,
being careful not to break the chain, which would bring bad
luck. The ashes from the fires were believed to have magical
powers, and farmers carefully collected them to scatter around
their fields or the animals' barns. The old bonfire customs
lasted well into modern times, and still continue today in Cornwall,
thanks to the efforts of the Old Cornwall Society in keeping
the old ways alive. On St. John's Eve, every hill in Cornwall
blazes like a beacon that can be seen for miles around, as they
did in days of old, while in some towns chains of dancers spiral
through the streets in the ancient serpentine dance.
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