Tag Archives: midsommar

Midsommar flowers under the pillow

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 74
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/23/18
Primary Language: Swedish
Language: English

Background information:

My grandmother was born in the suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden, and has three sisters who are roughly the same age as her. Together, they have always been best friends and have supported each other through everything. My grandmother and her sisters all have grandchildren, and us grandchildren go out to our collectively shared summerhouse in the Swedish archipelago every summer. This summerhouse was built by my grandmother’s parents and has been in the family for a while, giving it immense sentimental value. The shared summerhouse is located roughly two hours outside of Stockholm, Sweden by a boat ride and is very peaceful as it is located on an island called Södra Träskö that is completely without cars or internet connection.

 

Main piece:

My grandmother and her sisters routinely told me when I was growing up that I needed to put seven different types of flowers under my pillow on the day of Midsommar’s eve. They said that by putting seven different types of flowers under my pillow before I went to bed on Midsommar’s eve, I would have a vivid and colorful dream about my future husband. In order for the dream to be as accurate as possible, they stated that the steps in this ritual needed to be completed correctly, and therefore there needed to be seven flowers, each of a different kind, and they needed to be completely under my pillow before I fell asleep in order for this dream to project the most realistic and accurate image of my future husband. This was a ritual that had been taught to my grandmother and her sisters by their mother.

Personal thoughts:

I always thought this was a weird tradition, because I never believed that this was realistic and felt that there was no possible correlation between placing flowers under a pillow and dreaming about my future partner. My sister, who is much more of a romantic and dreamer than me, however, did this ritual every year and claimed that she got a sense of who she was going to marry. This, therefore, fueled her excitement and made her very happy for the future.

Midsommar

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 8, 2014
Primary Language: English

My friend was born in Sweden to a Swedish father and American mother, but moved to the United States as a child, so she sat down with me and told me about the different holidays that are celebrated in Sweden. Some were holidays she had celebrated frequently, while others we less important to her, but she still knew about from her family. Since midsummer includes children in the celebration, she had fond memories of past holidays in Sweden.

“Then we have midsommar, which is midsummers, it’s like the middle and it’s usually the summer solstice and that’s where it’s like the typical maypole, it’s almost like a cross with two rings and kids will have strings and dance around the maypole. And that’s also fertility”

Q: Have you celebrated this?

“I’ve done it ever since I was little. Usually it’s like the entire community gets together and there’s a central maypole for that community. So it’s not like it’s a fair, but everybody comes out and they picnic. And what the girls are supposed to do, is you’re supposed to collect seven different types of wildflowers and you make wreaths, like crowns, that you wear and you wear it all day and the girls usually wear white dresses and you’re supposed to jump over five different fences, and what you usually do is eat strawberries, strawberries and cream are like, in season, so you usually have strawberry cake and stuff like that. And you’re outside and you play games and it’s really, really fun. There’s specific songs and dances that you do while you dance around the Maypole. One of them is små grodorna, which means little frogs, and you jump over people…it’s for kids but it’s really, really cute. But when you get older, it’s like you drink and, but everybody still dresses up and it’s really pretty. But what girls are supposed to do is you put the wreath under your pillow and then you dream about the man you’re going to marry. I really remember actually making the crowns, because my mom was really good at doing it, because you have to like, braid, because they’re like wildflowers, you don’t buy something, you braid the flowers to create these really pretty things. It’s super fun and it lasts throughout the day”