Midsummer - this magical holiday, which for many is so incomparably large that it simply cannot be equated with any other weekend. And why should you do it by the way? Each holiday has its special anchoring with what is unique to the season itself. We say midsummer flowers because they are blooming right now. Ten-year-old trees become Christmas trees at Christmas, even if they already exist now. The symbol value occurs!
Midsummer celebrations in Sweden are more developed than in many comparable countries. Since the thirteenth century, so almost a thousand years ago, begins the first tracks for the celebration we are part of today. It was then that some nuns wanted to get some order in the midsummer celebration, a task that the police are still working on today. Then it was the church that wanted to take care of the order.
Traditions are something you want to be a part of in much the same way as before. As patterns, they are unusually useful, even sustainable with today's nomenclature. They are part of the cultural heritage. The very core of our traditions consists largely of symbols and symbolic actions. The midsummer pole is nothing more than our culture's totem pole that carries our summer symbols for the same reason and is celebrated in a mythological sense with an attraction to the 'divine'. Manners are reenactments of what we liked with impact, not least at the dinner table. The fish, east, the bread and the drink. And of course – the strawberries! Cajsa Warg (1703 – 69) began his recipes with ….'man tager, if you so have'... a condition that still applies today. And in the future.
The Wästerbotten cheese is filling 150 year by year, often self-written on the midsummer table. For just as long, they have managed to keep the recipe a secret. That particular cheese only exists because it is what it is. In comparison, I can mention that Långåfisket only exists in the form it is today since we kept it and kept the secret for more than three hundred years! The four nobles of Långåfishing – trout, char, grayling and whitefish, has brightened midsummer for generations of people here in the Långåå valley for more than four thousand years. It is a long time and sustainable tradition. In the perspective of time, it can still be mentioned that Grundsjörödingen has been here for roughly seven thousand years. And shall remain here. There is tradition and symbolic actions in that work as well, which is carried out today by the Långå fisheries management association and the Grundsjö project. It is not formulated in statute, agreement and work order because it is a matter of course. And that's what we're for, the time we are on loan here from Eternity. It is understandable that this also includes our responsibility for the midsummer celebration!
On Midsummer Eve we raise a toast to summer! Preferably with Långå Fishing Water in the glass! Always welcome here! Bowl!
Happy Solstice!
Helgi Jonsson