The celebration of Joninės (St John’s) on the night from June 23 to 24 combines pre-Christian traditions and more recent customs.
Ethnologist Nijolė Balčiūnienė notes that the festival – which falls roughly on the summer equinox and marks the shortest night of the year – has traditionally been called by several names in Lithuania: Joninės (St. John’s), Rasos (the Dew Festival), or Kupolinės (after kupolės, bouquets of field flowers).
“The Dew Festival got its name because it is the time when dew forms on rye fields, pollen is everywhere, and plants ripen. Before sunrise, people would bathe in the dew and some would roll around in the grass to keep their bodies healthy and their faces fair,” says Balčiūnienė.
With the introduction of Christianity, the new religion sought to take over the old pagan traditions. The Dew Festival was renamed St. John.
“And even now, we rarely hear people calling St John’s anything else,” says Balčiūnienė.
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Joninės was somewhat less salient during the Soviet era, when people celebrated with barbeques (shashlik) and beer.
However, the ethnologist is pleased that Joninės is slowly regaining its old traditions: bonfires, wreaths, and searching for the fern blossom.
“Since ancient times, women would walk in silence in the meadows, collect nine herbs, and go to fortune-tellers to be told their future from those bouquets, kupolės.”
Moreover, girls would form dancing circles in the middle of a meadow, by a lake or on a high hill, and weave wreaths, Balčiūnienė says. They would also erect a pole with three branches, representing the sun, the moon, and the stars. They would then try to throw wreaths on the pole – how many attempts it took is the number of years until their marriage.
In the morning, young people would put their wreaths in a lake and let them float freely – if two of them collided, it meant that the boy and the girl were destined to be together, explains the ethnologist.
It was believed that the vegetation that grew before Midsummer’s Eve would have the most life-giving powers, so herbalists still scramble to pick herbs before the longest day of the year.
Before Midsummer, the sun makes a big circle in the sky, staying at the same point for a week, and then the days start getting shorter.
“Our ancestors honoured the sun with songs and called it beautiful names. Fire is also a very important element in the Dew Festival. Participants would gather around a large bonfire, hold hands and jump over it,” according to Balčiūnienė.
Not only was it a test of courage, but it was believed that by jumping over the bonfire, people were purified and protected from diseases. A couple jumping together meant they would soon get married.
“I think that this celebration has a great meaning for modern people as well because they want to get in touch with our oldest traditions,” says Balčiūnienė.
No place for alcohol
Although most Midsummer celebrations take place in the countryside, cities and towns also throw big festivals for Joninės.
“Everything can be done right here in the city if you choose a good place. Verkiai Park has a hill, flowing water and trees, so you can make kupolės, weave wreaths out of herbs and let them float,” she stresses.
Balčiūnienė, who herself is an organiser of Joninės in Vilnius, is happy that her festival is alcohol-free.
“The police joke that there is nothing for them to do on Midsummer’s Eve because there are no drunks, people take part in the activities, they get together for the future, they form circles, they join in the dancing around the bonfire,” says the ethnologist.
Young people do not shy away from the event either – every year more and more of them come, and young families bring their children. If the weather is good, several thousand people come to the festival on Verkių Hill in Vilnius.
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