A Midsommer Night’s in Denmark

June 23

The Scandinavians never pass up a chance for a good bonfire. Midsummer Night, or St. John’s Eve as it’s sometimes called in Denmark and Norway, is the perfect occasion. The holiday has little to do with St. John the Baptist, other than falling just before his saint day. In the 10th century Baltic and Scandinavian countries replaced the traditional names of Midsummer with allusions to the feast of St. John the Baptist, which fell on June 24.

In fact the tradition long pre-dates Christianity’s entry into Scandinavia. Midsummer was originally a tribute to the pagan sun god, and the bonfire represented defeat over darkness.

In Scandinavia, darkness hovers over the landscape for much of the year. On Midsummer Night however, it can stay light until midnight; in parts of Norway it can stay light for weeks at a time in late June, hence the name Land of the Midnight Sun.

For hundreds of years Midsummer Eve torch processions were common. Other rites centered around nature. Midsummer was viewed as an auspicious date for fertility. Farmers prayed for a bountiful harvest while maidens collected special herbs and plants, including St. John’s wort.

I must gather the mystic St. John’s wort tonight-
The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride…

— “The St John’s Wort”, old German poem

In some towns, villagers would light a straw-covered wheel afire and roll it down a hill to be extinguished in the river. Across Poland and the Baltic, maidens would toss herbs into the fire to protect them from evil spirits in the year to come while young men would jump over fires to display their bravado.

Today the holiday is a time for community to come together around the bonfire and sing patriotic songs such as “Vi elsker vort land”, also known as Midsommervisen.

We love our land
Our midsummer most
When each cloud over the field sends a blessing
When the flowers are in bloom
And the cattle drags the plough
Giving gifts to laborious hands…

…Every woman, every man can
Find an example of love for life!
Let the times grow old, let the colors fade
We will however draw a memory in our hearts
From the North so rich in legends
A glory shines across the world…

To this day Danes continue to burn a straw witch effigy atop a bonfire on Midsummer Eve, a tradition borrowed from their German neighbors in the late 19th century. The witch effigy represents evil spirits, but to some the throwback eerily recalls the Danish witch burnings of the 1600s.

Other names for Midsummer Day and Eve:

Denmark: Sankt Hans aften (Hans is the diminutive of Johannes or John.)
Norway: Jonsok
Poland: Sobotka, Swietojanska, Wianki
Eastern Poland/ Ukraine: Kupalnocka, Kupala
Russia: Ivan Kupala

http://www.epinions.com/content_1470341252

Denmark’s National Day

June 5

“O Denmark! in thy quiet lap reclined,
The dazzling joys of varied earth forgot,
I find the peace I strove in vain to find,
The peace I never found where thou wert not.”

Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager, “To My Native Land

Denmark’s two main national holidays celebrate completely contradictory principles. One celebrates the birthday of the monarch (April 16) while the other celebrates the anniversary of the taking of power away from the monarch, on June 5, 1849.

To understand the importance of the 1849 Constitution, we have to delve into the histories of the Danes and Swedes, which are hopelessly incestuous until 1523. Don’t even try telling the two apart before then. But Sweden’s breakaway in 1523 led to a new relationship between the two. Namely, one of war, a hobby the two nations pursued with abandon for the next century and a half.

Finally along came a Danish king in the mid 17th century, Frederick III, who somehow managed to win over the hearts and minds of the Danish people by leading them to utter defeat at the hands of the Swedish in 1658—and then by staging an unprecedented comeback in Game 7 of the Dano-Swedish War (1658-1660), defending the city of Copenhagen from destruction and forcing Sweden to relinquish territory.

King Frederick III, by Wolfgang Heimbach

The crowds went wild. The conqueror Frederick III became the Lakers of Denmark, and his popularity grew to such an extent that the First Estate was persuaded to disband the legislative assembly and concede all power to Frederick. This was accomplished by the Lex Regia Perpetua / Kongelov (King’s Law), a document which…

“has the highly dubious honour of being the one written law in the civilized world which fearlessly carries out absolutism to the last consequences.” (R. Nisbet Bain, Danmarks Riges Historie)

The king’s word was the law of the land for nearly two centuries. It wasn’t until 1849 that King Frederick VII peacefully overturned the principles of the Kongelov, relinquishing absolute power and establishing the constitutional monarchy of Denmark.

The last revision to the Constitution was in 1953, also on June 5.

How to celebrate Constitution Day? Or Grundlovsdag as it’s called…

According to wikipedia.org,

“Some people attend political meetings, though many – especially the elderly – meet at the sites of the political meetings to drink beer and other alcoholic beverages.” (Public Holidays in Denmark)

National Constitution Assembly of 1848, by Constantin Hansen

Official Denmark Constitution – Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Frederick III of Denmark

Queen Margrethe II’s Birthday – Denmark

April 16

On April 9, 1940 Nazi Germany overran the virtually defenseless nation of Denmark on its way to invading Norway that same day. Germany’s reason was strategic. Germany was dependent on Norway’s natural resources for arms and materials. Its official justification was more altruistic: to “protect” Denmark from potential Franco-British invasion.

Danish King Christian X was told that, if Denmark didn’t capitulate, the German Luftwaffe would decimate the capital. The King reluctantly agreed.

Christian X, Sept. 26, 1940, his 70th birthday
Christian X, Sept. 26, 1940, his 70th birthday

Denmark’s cooperation with Germany had its advantages. Only a hundred Danish Jews perished at Nazi hands during World War II. When Hitler ordered Denmark’s Jews rounded up and sent to concentration camps, Danes smuggled 8000 to safety in Sweden. The King was once quoted as saying that if Denmark’s Jews were forced to wear yellow stars (for identification), then he and the Danes would all wear yellow stars. (The Nazis never enforced the policy.)

A week after the invasion, the King’s son, Crown-Prince Frederik and his wife gave birth to baby girl. Though the birth brought a ray of hope to one of Denmark’s darkest hours, no one imagined she might be queen, and that one day the country would celebrate her birthday as a holiday. For the Danish throne always passed to a male. Even if the king had no sons, the crown would go to a male relative.

But eight years after the war, when Princess Margrethe was 13, the Constitutional Act of 1953 amended the rule of royal primogeniture, allowing the first-born daughter to inherit the throne if the king had no son. Even then no one could be sure Margrethe would be queen, or that King Frederik IX wouldn’t have a son.

On January 15, 1972, the day after the death of her father, the 31 year-old princess became the Queen of Denmark, the first Queen Regent since 1412.

Queen Margaret I had ruled first on behalf of her underage son Oluf back in the 1370’s. When Oluf died unexpectedly in 1387 at age 17, Margaret became Queen Regent. During her 25 year reign, Margaret unified Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Apparently this made the men-folk look bad, so they didn’t allow another woman to take the helm for 550 years.

Queen Margrethe II
Queen Margrethe II

Though not quite as powerful as her namesake—the power of the Danish monarch waned significantly in the 19th and 20th centuries—Queen Margrethe II is the undisputed head of the oldest consecutive royal line of monarchs in Europe. Consisting of 50 kings and 2 queens, the Danish royal line dates back to Gorm the Old and the Viking days over 1000 years ago.

Other memorable Danish Kings include:

  • Harald Bluetooth
  • Sweyn Forkbeard
  • Canute the Great
  • Magnus the Good
  • and Valdemar the Victorious