‘Litha is a pagan holiday; one of their eight sabbats during the year. Litha (also known as Midsummer) occurs on the summer solstice, and celebrates the beginning of summer. The traditions of Litha appear to be borrowed from many cultures. Most ancient cultures celebrated the summer solstice in some way. The Celts celebrated Litha with hilltop bonfires and dancing. Many people attempted to jump over or through the bonfires for good luck.

Other European traditions included setting large wheels on fire, and rolling them down a hill into a body of water. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, and in some traditions, Litha is when a battle between light and dark takes place. In this battle, the Oak King and the Holly King battle for control. During each solstice, they battle for power, and the balance shifts. The Oak King, who represents daylight, rules from the winter solstice (Yule) to Litha. During this time, the days steadily get longer. However, during Litha, the Holly King wins this battle, and the days get steadily darker until Yule.

For modern day pagans, Litha is a day of inner power and brightness. Some people find a quiet spot and meditate about the light and dark forces in their world. Some other observers, particularly those with children, celebrate this holiday outside. Lastly, some observers choose to observe Litha more traditionally, and they would hold a fire ritual. This might include a large bonfire, or a small fire in a fire-safe pot in one’s house. Litha is also considered a good time to practice love magic or get married. The pagan version of this ceremony is called handfasting, and it includes many of the same practices one might find at a wedding….’ (Dhruti Bhagat via bpl.org)

‘What is the Summer Solstice?

The Summer Solstice takes place between June 20-23 in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the longest day of the year, occurring when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky. This day marks the beginning of summer with the sun at its fullest power. After the solstice, the days will begin to grow shorter.

What is Litha?

Litha, also known as Midsummer, is the pagan holiday honoring the sun and fire. Pagan celebrations during this holiday have themes of strength, growth, success and wealth. Litha also celebrates the abundance of nature and honors sacred bodies of water. The symbols of Litha are the sun, roses, sunflowers, honeybees, lightning bugs, sand and water. The colors of this holiday include yellow, green, gold and red.

Ways to Celebrate

Greet the Dawn

Many traditions greet the rising sun the morning of the summer solstice. Set your alarm to wake up with the sunrise. If possible, spend a few moments outside to soak up the sun. Take in the energy of Litha while reading or repeating these affirmations:

“I am as strong and energetic as the summer sun. I believe in myself and what I am capable of doing.”

“I deserve to feel happiness, contentment and joy in what I have and what I have done.”

“I am filled with light, moving in the direction I need to move, and following the path I am meant to walk.”

Bonfire Gathering

Traditional celebrations included large bonfires, usually on the sundown of Midsummer’s Eve. Bonfires are a great activity to gather friends or family. You can tell stories, roast marshmallows, or dance around the fire. Write down an obstacle or problem on a piece of paper and surrender your problem to the flames.

If you don’t have a safe place to make a bonfire, you can substitute with candles, sparklers, battery-powered candles, or even an image of a fire. Remember to practice fire safety—never leave a fire or candle unattended, keep water nearby, and make sure to keep a safe distance from the flames.

Day at the Beach

Some pagan traditions included traveling to sacred wells or other bodies of water on the day of the solstice. This was a time for healing and to honor the gift of water.

We are lucky in Michigan to be surrounded by lakes. Honor the gift of water by taking a day trip to a beach with friends or family. Pack a lunch with fresh fruits and vegetables. Play beach games including ring toss, volleyball or frisbee. Cool off by jumping and swimming in the water. Take time to relax by soaking up the sun or reading a book.

If you can’t make it to the beach, bring the beach to your home. Soak up the sun outside and cool off in a sprinkler or with a water balloon fight. Listen to summer-themed music while playing traditional beach games. No matter what you choose to do, take this time to have fun with family or friends.

Faerie Magic

Litha is the perfect time for faerie magic, as the veil between our world and the faerie world is thin. Faeries or the Fae Folk are mythical beings that exist in a variety of different cultures. There are many different types of faeries including brownies, pixies, leprechauns, elves, devas and gnomes. Faeries are typically tricksters, so be careful what you ask for.

Firefly Wish: Fireflies are a symbol of faeries and fire. Gently catch a firefly on your finger. Make a wish and gently blow the firefly away into the night.

Faerie Picnic: Faeries are said to be drawn to sweet things, including food. Pack a picnic with faerie-themed treats including honey, milk, cake, cookies or bread. Find a quiet spot in nature to enjoy your faerie treats.

Daisy Fortune: Use a daisy to determine if your crush loves you or not. Pick a flower, preferably a daisy, and hold it in one hand. Pull off one petal at a time, saying “they love me” or “they love me not,” with each petal. The last petal pulled off will determine if your crush loves you….’ (CPL Teens via cantonpl.org)

In an 1855 oil painting from Gunby Hall, Lincolnshire, Scottish painter William Bell Scott depicts pixies dancing by firelight. In a letter that Scott wrote in 1886, he described the painting as showing ‘fairies dancing before a great dying kitchen fire…at a Haunted House on Midsummer’s Eve.’

Origins of the summer solstice

In Northern and Central European Neolithic cultures, the summer solstice may have been related to timings of crop cycles. It was typically marked by Celtic, Slavic and Germanic people by lighting bonfires, intended to boost the sun’s strength for the remainder of the crop season and ensure a healthy harvest.

The solstice sits within a wider celestial framework, complemented by seasonal equinoxes marking spring and autumn as well as daily, monthly and annual cycles.

Stone circles

Many Neolithic stone circles appear to have been built around the movement of the sun at solstices. Because there are no written accounts from the time, it’s difficult to be definitive about their exact purpose. However, stones appear to be carefully positioned to align with the sun’s movements, framing solar motion on summer and winter solstices. Stones that were placed at the axis of a particular solstice were even shaped with hammerstones to frame the sunrise for those standing in the centre of the circle.

Summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day

Though it might seem that the middle of summer would naturally fall on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day are distinct events, normally a few days apart between 20 and 24 June. The difference is thought to stem from variations in the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

Midsummer traditions

The longest day has been marked in different ways over the years and has its own set of customs. Some are based on practical needs. Others originate from spiritual and superstitious beliefs.

Bonfires

Lighting and jumping over bonfires on Midsummer’s Eve dates back to pre-Christian pagan customs. It was thought to keep demons away and bring good luck to lovers.

Viking customs

The solstice was particularly important in Nordic communities, where seasonal changes in sunlight are dramatic. The Vikings used the long days to maximise their productivity by hunting, settling disputes and conducting raids.

Christian festivals

After the Christian Church was established, solstice celebrations were combined with St John’s Day, commemorating St John the Baptist. In the 19th century, Christians used St John’s Day to act out the baptisms of children who had died as ‘pagans’.

Pixies dancing in a Ring by the Firelight painting by William Bell Scott at Gunby Hall, Lincolnshire | © National Trust Images

Depictions of midsummer magic

Mysticism and magic are a common theme in midsummer folklore across the world as well as in the UK. Magic was thought to be strongest during the summer solstice and myths told of the world turning upside down or the sun standing still at midsummer…’ (via National Trust)

‘Comprehensive new research has emerged with much more archaeological data on violence in prehistory. Analysis indicates that prehistoric hunter gatherers were considerably less violent than is commonly believed. This finding also seems to be borne out by ethnographic data on modern hunter gatherers with lifestyles relatively similar to their prehistoric ancestors.

Hunter gatherers were not non-violent noble savages by any stretch of the imagination. They were relatively violent when compared with modern standards and even when compared with rates of violence experienced by other primates and mammals in general. However, we think this is primarily because human conflict is so lethal, not because it happens so often. On the contrary, hunter gatherers typically exhibit non-violent norms, with amoral and atypical sociopaths accounting for a disproportionate share of violence, just as in our own societies today.

Understanding this matters. Our extraordinary capacity to inflict lethal violence on each other is normally held in restraint by the natural aversion most people have to violence. If we fail to cooperate, we are vulnerable to falling into vicious cycles of violence that don’t benefit anyone. But we should be more optimistic about our capacity for peacemaking; our ‘better angels’ as Pinker puts it. Despite living in states of political anarchy, hunter gatherers were normally able to cooperate and exist peacefully together.

For the first 290,000 years of our species’ approximately 300,000 year history, everyone was a hunter gatherer.  In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker argued that hunter gatherers suffered from extremely high rates of violence. Better Angels claims that at least 14 percent of prehistoric hunter gatherers died violently. This equates to a violent death rate of at least 420 per 100,000 people per year, using data on typical hunter gatherer mortality rates.

This is a much higher rate of violence than almost anywhere in the modern world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. To put it in perspective, global deaths from all types of violence between 2004–21 were around 8 per 100,000 people per year. Even the most violent cities in the world today, in Northern Brazil, South Africa, and on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border, have murder rates of only around 100 per 100,000 per year.

The implication in Better Angels is that the human mind evolved and developed in a world plagued by constant, endemic violence.

Our 2022 study examined both the ethnographic data – contemporary studies of groups that existed until some modern contact – and archeological data on hunter gatherer violence, much of which comes from data gathered after the publication of Better Angels. We reviewed quantitative estimates of rates of violence in ethnographies, filtering for groups that are most representative of our pre-agricultural ancestors. Our archeological estimates are based on reanalyzing a dataset developed by Gomez et al. (which was released after Better Angels was published and has dozens of extra samples), which attempts to measure rates of violent death by looking for evidence of trauma to skeletal remains. Our study produced estimates for lethal violence around four times lower than Pinker’s figures.

Prehistoric hunter gatherers seem to have been somewhat more violent than the twentieth-century average, but not dramatically so. And this is despite these societies lacking any of the modern state’s apparatus for managing violence: no code of law, no judges, no police, and no sophisticated healthcare….’ (John Halstead via worksinprogress.co)