Today is the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere. In Witchcraft, this longest-day-of-the-year is known as Litha, but throughout my life, I’ve always celebrated this as the Nordic holiday of Midsommar.
Some of my happiest childhood memories are from spending my summers back in the Swedish countryside. After school was out, we would go to Sweden for the majority of our summer holiday to spend time with family. Me and my brother and cousins would wander for hours along the roads winding between their house and our Gran’s, picking wildflowers and looking for “smultron”, the tiny, delicious wild strawberries that grow along the roadside. We would have stayed out until dark, but the thing is- it doesn’t really get dark this time of year. Sweden is located so far north, the sun doesn’t fully set in the height of summer. Everything is lush and green from the spring snow melt, and we loved to fish and swim in the lakes and streams, shallow and warm from the endless summer sun. It doesn’t exactly stay completely light out, but the nights remain in twilight until the next day. The “Land of the Midnight Sun” is truly magical during this time of year.
This is starkly contrasted by the winter months in Scandinavia. On the winter solstice, Jul, the sun hardly rises at all. Everything is cloaked in darkness for months on end and the weather turns bitterly cold and snowy. With a maximum of three hours of sunlight a day even in the southernmost parts of the country, hardly anything grows and everyone has to wait until spring to enjoy spending time outdoors again.
Which brings me to my main point.
Over the past year, when I’ve mentioned that I was born in Sweden, I get asked one annoying question immediately:
Oh! So have you seen that Midsommar movie yet?
The short answer?
No, I haven’t, and I don’t intend to.
The long answer is this:
Sweden was among the last countries in Europe to be colonized by Christianity. However, due to the strong relationship the people have to the land and the changing of the seasons, Midsommar is a rare Pagan tradition that has remained in popularity since long before the first coming of Christianity to Sweden in the 9th century. As a Pagan myself, this is something about Midsommar that I hold dear to my heart. We adorn ourselves with homemade flower crowns, dance around a beautifully decorated floral maypole, and share in food, drink, and song with our loved ones. This is the happiest day of the year for many people in the Nordic countries, and is a time for friends and family to come together in joyful celebration of the summer sun’s return.
From what I understand, the film “Midsommar” follows a troubled young American couple to a mysterious ‘festival’ in northern Sweden at the behest of a somewhat nefarious Swedish friend. The constant bright sunlight (like I said, a stark exaggeration) and intense, overly-friendly demeanor of the Swedes terrifies the main character (played by Florence Pugh), who discovers that the Midsommar festival is actually orchestrated by a cult, complete with sex and blood rituals and human sacrifice.
I basically had to stop watching the trailer there.
I was pretty angry at the way the holiday was portrayed. Not only that there were such inconsistencies with what this time is actually like, but that a beautiful and loving tradition that has survived for millennia and remained largely unknown to people outside of Scandinavia, has been publicly and globally bastardized into something ugly and scary.
This is problematic for several reasons. One, is that this is an American film, by an American writer/director, with a British lead. No matter how much research these people did, they are outsiders inaccurately portraying a culture they could never fully understand. Their primary audience are Americans. And the fact that Midsommar is not an Anglo-American tradition gives it an aura of “otherness” and makes it very easy for Americans to re-imagine as sinister and savage, when in reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The portrayal is not only inaccurate, it’s xenophobic.
If you’re looking for a more in-depth review by someone who actually watched the film:
I liked this one.
I understand that there are literally HUNDREDS, probably thousands, of horror films inaccurately portraying the “savageness” or “otherness” of all sorts of different cultures around the world, and that Sweden is certainly nowhere near the top of the list of places and people misrepresented by that genre.
My point is, I don’t think it was a good idea to turn the Midsommar holiday itself into a horror film. There are plenty of Swedish myths and legends that are scary as hell, and if anyone had done even surface-level digging, they could have represented the culture of Sweden a lot more effectively.
At the end of the day, I guess it isn’t hurting anyone. But it’s something that’s irked me for some time and I felt that today would be a good time to clear the air.
Because the truth is, Swedes are for the most part very welcoming and easygoing bunch! And if you come to a Midsommar festival, the most frightening thing you’d see would most likely be some of the older folks’ dance moves.
So enough negativity. Today is a day of joy and celebration, and I won’t let anything get in the way of my enjoying the first solstice of the decade.
So, from this girl to everyone around the world:
Glåd Midsommar till alla!
A Very Happy Midsummer to you all!
Norse Western 
One Comment