Jāņi

Jāņi or Līgo svētki(Midsummer night festival) is one of the best Latvian festivals which is held in summer at night from 23rd to 24th of June. The rooms and houses are decorated with small green twigs and different herbs. Girls wear wreaths made from flowers while men wear wreaths made from the twigs of an oak-tree. The host and hostess have prepared a special Līgo refreshments for their guests - caraway-seed cheese, some beer and other things. In the last years people eat also fried meat(barbecue, shashlik) a tradition borrowed from Eastern countries. The main idea of this festival is to celebrate the light's victory over darkness as this is commonly considered the shortest night of the year(eventhough we know that actually the shortest night happens to take place some two nights earlier). So to help the sun to win the night people are supposed to make fires and stay awake all night till sunrise. People also sing songs and have other activities, like searching for fearn blossom. This fearn blossom traditionally people went to search in woods alone and the one who was lucky to find it had gained happiness for entire life. However, somewhere during their scarry, lonely walks in forests people met and as they were away from other people, they started doing completely different things. Therefore nowadays, "seeking for Fearn blossom" is often used as euphemism for a sexual intercourse. There are of course a lot of various activities people do at this magic night like - predict future, do fertility and blessing rituals of the household, sing, dance, rejoice, celebrate my birthday etc. If you have any questions about it, feel free to post your questions.