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On the days around Midsummer (Sant Joan, June 24th), in Catalonia there's the tradition of making bouquets with St. John's wort, cotton lavender, curry plant, walnut leaf, and stonecrop, and can include thyme, rosemary and other local plants. They are flowers that grow in our landscape and which are in bloom on the days around this holiday.
The tradition is related to the belief in Catalan folklore that the Night of Sant Joan's Eve (June 23rd) is the most magical night of the year, and all herbs picked on this night or spells done this night have a stronger effect.
The tradition is to hang the bouquet on the door or above the fireplace to get dry. The bouquet can be used later in the year as medicinal herbs or be burned the next year in the Sant Joan Night's bonfires (this holiday is celebrated making bonfires). This is said to grant protection from illness and mythological beings, who tend to mess with humans on this night.
The Catalan poet Jacint Verdaguer explained a story about it in his book CanigĂł, published in 1886. The original poem in Catalan is under the cut, here's the translation to English:
Saint John's Day is a great holiday,
the Pyrenean girls place a bouquet on the door
since there was one of them, with blue eyes and blonde eyebrow,
with a star on her forehead and a rose on each cheek.
A fallaire [=men who carry the lit giant torches down the mountain for the tradition] caught her eye,
it seems like a big sparrow hawk alluring a dove.
On Saint John's morning, the little dove flies
flies to the river bank to search for good fortune.
She picks a small bouquet of flowers
the best fortune that can be found.
Saint John's wort, rosemary and thyme,
and with them she makes a cross
and with it she crowns the farmhouse's lintel.
When her suitor arrives,
he doesn't dare to come in;
she says, from inside the house:
"Why do you stay outside?"
"Because you bar my way through the door
with the flowers of that bunch."
"You are scared of a little bouquet?"
"I am scared of its shape of winding tool."
"It's not a winding tool's shape, it's a cross;
and if you're scared of that, you're no good thing."
"For I am the Devil,
the spirit who takes souls.
Had it not been for the little bouquet,
yours would be my wife,
and today we would lay together
on my bed of fire and sulphur."
Since this happened,
on a Saint John's morning,
up the riverbanks of the Garona,
from the Cantabric Sea to Roses,
the girls of the Pyrenees
place a bouquet on the door.
Photos from Xarxa de Parcs de les Olors, Centre d'Estudis Mitològics de Catalunya and Canigó, la montagne sacrÊe des catalans.
Lo dia de Sant Joan
nâĂŠs dia de festa grossa,
les nines del Pirineu
posen un ram a la porta,
dâençà que una nâhi haguĂŠ
dâulls blavencs i cella rossa,
tenia una estrella al front
i a cada galta una rosa.
Un fallaire li ha caigut
a lâull, ÂĄmalhaja la brossa!
nâapar un esparverot
que fa lâaleta a una tĂłrtora.
Lo matĂ de Sant Joan
la tortoreta seân vola,
seân vola voreta el riu
a cercar ventura bona.
Un ramellet cull de flors,
millor ventura no troba,
floretes de Sant Joan,
de romanĂ i farigola,
i amb elles fent una creu
del mas la llinda en corona.
Quan arriba el seu galant
a la casa entrar no gosa;
ella li diu des de dins:
âDoncs Per què et quedes defora?
âPerquè em barres lo portal
amb les flors dâaqueixa toia.
âUn ramellet te fa por?
âMe fa por dâaspi sa forma.
âNo ĂŠs dâaspi, no, que ĂŠs de creu;
si et fa por, no ets cosa bona.
âDoncs sĂł el maligne esperit
que les Ă nimes sâemporta.
Si no fos lo ramellet
la teva fĂłra ma esposa,
avui jaurĂem plegats
en mon jaç de foc i sofre.â
Dâençà que això succeĂ,
lo matĂ de Sant Joan,
ribera amunt del Garona,
des del CantĂ bric a Roses,
les nines del Pirineu
posen un ram a la porta.
often i feel like a deer to be hunted craving gentle hands and vulnerability but i flee from the slightest sounds i yearn for the day that i can step into the openness and feel at ease
Painting by Isaac Fuller (c. 1620-1672), sold at Christieâs in 2021 under the title âPortrait of a gentleman, bust-length, with a further portrait beneathâ.
President Donald Trump says the U.S. Park Police have rounded up a ring of vandals who sabotaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The a
President Donald Trump says the U.S. Park Police have rounded up a ring of vandals who sabotaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The actual arrest record tells a much smaller story: one 67-year-old cyclist who says he reached into the water to touch a piece of paint that had already fallen off.
In a Truth Social post Saturday, Trump escalated his days-long insistence that his troubled $14 million renovation was the victim of a crime rather than a botched paint job. "The United States Park Police have arrested multiple individuals for vandalizing our Nations magnificent Reflecting Poll," he wrote, misspelling "Pool." "Who would do such a thing? These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments. Years in jail! Work will begin immediately on its repair."
According to The Washington Post, Park Police arrested a single person on Friday: David Hearn, a 67-year-old man from Bethesda and a three-time Olympic canoe slalom athlete, on a misdemeanor charge of destruction of government property.
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