Bonfires

Bonfires used to blaze all across Europe on Midsummer Eve, and on the other side of the Mediterranean in nortthwestern Africa too. There are fewer of them nowadays, but they still span the continent from east to west, and north to south. People still jump over them in countries as far apart as Spain, Greece and Finland, celebrating their shared culture in their own regional ways. Not all of those are ancient. Effigies of witches are often burned at Danish midsummer festivals – including the one pictured here – but that tradition only dates back to 1900, when it was invented by a group of students in Jutland.

The cultural value of midsummer fire is officially recognised by UNESCO, which has inscribed the fire festivals of the Pyrenees – held in 63 Spanish, French and Andorran towns – on its List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In these rituals the central fire is a burning log, rather than a bonfire. People gather its ashes to protect their homes or gardens, an act with a distant family resemblance to the Ukrainian custom of using ashes from the burned hilechko wish-tree as garden fertiliser. In the western Irish city of Cork, by contrast, the authorities saw 'Bonna Night' celebrations as an anti-social behaviour problem. They clamped down on unauthorised bonfires and replaced them with 'Summer Fun Nights' – a move which the local spirits seem to have tolerated.




Photo: David Skinner. Midsummer bonfire on the Danish island of Bornholm.