Not many people know about the Swedish Midsummer. (Please click on the link if you want to find out.)
So why do Swedes celebrate midsummer? If referring back to original traditions, the season around Midsummer is the season where most crops begin to ripen. The old Swedes were poor peasants whose only hope to survive was on how their annual harvest would do. Hoping to get their crops as big and many as possible, the Swedes raised and decorated a maypole, which in actuality is the symbol of a penis turned upside down, planted into the ground in order to have its seed (sperm) fertilize the earth. Families and friends got together to have a great feast, where most of the year’s savings are spent on this one day of celebration, and afterwards they dance around the maypole as a ritual to get the penis erect and eject.
Today, not many of the Swedish people believe in this anymore. Some still dance around the maypole to uphold the tradition, but most Swedes simply have a great feast with the traditional fresh potatoes, pickled herrings and strawberries when they celebrate the Midsummer. Nowadays, the Midsummer celebration is more focused on having the day off (since Midsummer is always on a Friday and a Saturday between 19th and 25th of June) and booze. Almost one hundred per cent of the Swedish youths and adults from thirteen to fourty-five drink until they are numb. Many of those get into fights or car accidents, making the Swedish Midsummer a rather troubled tradition, especially for the National Road Administration, and for the police.
Bad.
