Festival of Mid-Summer's Day

June 24^th is the Festival of Mid-Summer’s Day.  This isn’t the same as the Solstice (the shortest day of the year) which was June 21^st.  Today is a quarter-day, along with March 24^th (Lady  Day), September 29^th (Michaelmas) and December 25^th (Christmas).

The festival is still important to pagans today, including the modern day Druids who celebrate the solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. For many, the light of the sun on Midsummer's Day, is sacred.

Mistletoe was, and is, highly revered by the Druids. It is regarded as particularly potent when it grows on oak. Although it is more commonly associated with Yule and the Winter Solstice, it was often gathered ceremonially at Midsummer when it is regarded as being at the height of its powers.

According to

 http://www.guy-sports.com/humor/saints/midsummers_day.htm:

Midsummer Is A Magical Time

·         Young ladies wash their faces in the mid-summer’s day morning dew to make themselves beautiful; older people do the same to make themselves look younger.

·         If you walk barefoot in the dew on Midsummer Day's morning, it will stop the skin from getting chapped.

·         If you can bring yourself to skip naked through the dew in the night, then it, supposedly, will ensure fertility for the coming year.

• It was an old belief, in England, that one of the best times to see fairies is between twilight and midnight on Midsummer's Day.   Let's be sure to look!