Photo credit: Katie Belo dos Santos & Words: Martin Brisland.
Human society has always been connected to the sun for our survival.
The Helios artwork by artist Luke Jerram was on display in Winchester Cathedral earlier in 2026. Helios, which is Greek for sun, is a touring artwork, which features detailed imagery of the Sun’s surface.
The summer solstice at Stonehenge welcomes the sun on the longest day of the year when the Heel Stone receives the first rays of dawn.
In European Neolithic cultures, the summer solstice may have been related to timings of crop cycles. It was typically marked by Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic people by lighting bonfires to boost the sun’s strength for the remainder of the crop season and ensure a healthy harvest.
Though it might seem that the middle of summer would naturally fall on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day are distinct events, normally a few days apart between 20 and 24 June.
This year the solstice or longest day is 21 June. In the Northern Hemisphere it can vary between June 20, 21 and 22 as the astronomical year is 365.25 days long. However midsummer day falls on June 24 this year. After the Christian Church was established, solstice celebrations were often combined with St. John’s Day on 24 June, commemorating St John the Baptist.
Lighting and jumping over bonfires on Midsummer’s Eve dates to pre-Christian pagan custom of Litha, a pagan holiday. It was thought to keep demons away and bring good luck to lovers.
The solstice was particularly important in Nordic communities, where seasonal changes in sunlight are dramatic.
Magic was thought to be strongest during the summer solstice and myths told of the world turning upside down or the sun standing still at midsummer.
In an 1855 oil painting Scottish painter William Bell Scott depicts pixies dancing by firelight on Midsummer’s Eve. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare is set in Athens. The characters find themselves in a forest where fairies manipulate them.
Midsummer was seen as a time when the normal laws of nature or divinity could be suspended, when spirits and fairies could contact humans, when humans could exceed the usual limitations of their world.
Observing the longest day is not limited to the Western world. Many ancient cultures had unique traditions centred around midsummer and celebrated deities associated with the sun.
In ancient Egypt, the summer solstice aligned with the rise of the River Nile. Amun-Ra was the creator of life and ruler of the sun, sky, and kings. Apollo was the Roman God of the Sun, and the second century Apollo Belvedere marble statue of a nude male is in the Vatican.
The temple at Palmyra, Syria built in the first century, was used to worship Yarhibol, a Sun God.
I was not surprised to find out that Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles is the most streamed song on Spotify.
- In Common is not for profit. We rely on donations from readers to keep the site running. Could you help to support us for as little as 25p a week? Please help us to carry on offering independent grass roots media. Visit: https://www.patreon.com/incommonsoton