Hot property: Roger Babington Hill has a Finnish midsummer

‘Being naked strips away the grosser parts of the ego.’

Finland is one-and-a-half times larger than the UK. Forests cover most of this land, and every tree felled must be replaced. There are nearly 200,000 lakes; most cover only a few acres, but 300-or-so are like small inland seas. There is a universal right to roam, except over tilled farmland and private gardens.

In this context it’s easy to see why Finns have a close relationship to nature alongside their sophisticated city life. Most families have access to a country cottage. These vary in size but the important thing is to be deep in nature. Many families leave the city every weekend to be together in the natural world.

At midsummer, celebrations start on the first Friday after the summer solstice and continue as a national holiday for the whole weekend. They are devoted to family and close friends, with as much social significance as Christmas. That was true for us here in Kokkola, where much food was provided inside and outside round the camp fire. Some of us swam in the nearby sea; all of us walked in the forest.

Climate differences are much more dramatic here than in Britain. This is particularly evident in the changes of light. In winter there is scarcely any sunlight, though reflections from the snow ensure that the general luminance is far higher than in a dark Devon winter. In summer there is no darkness. You can sit outside to read all night. Once when we were driving at midnight to Rovaniemi, the capital city of Lapland, the light was so bright that I had to wear dark glasses.

Alongside the social link between Christmas and Midsummer is an important religious link. Each festival represents one of the two poles of an ever-changing world. Christmas, based on the winter solstice, illustrates the new beginning of the year personified in Jesus Christ and his teaching. Midsummer – the feast of John the Baptist – represents the closing down of the old order. For contemporary Lutherans, Midsummer is a popular time for Confirmations.

Before Christianity, indigenous Sami people celebrated Midsummer with elements of shamanistic culture, including making fires from burning bones (hence bonfires) and saying prayers for the mentally ill, whose condition would be exacerbated by the declining light.

Religious or not, one activity that is close to worship, universal in Finland, is the sauna. It is the focal point in family life, and in political and business life too. Young Finns see and appreciate human bodies as they age, a physical truth fully uncovered – there are no sexual implications in Finnish sauna culture. Before Putin, the Finnish and Russian presidents would regularly sauna together. Discussions are frank and honest – being naked strips away the grosser parts of the ego.

At Christmas and Midsummer one sauna custom is to gently beat the sins out of your partner with birch twigs. Jaana takes a special delight in addressing mine, though what she can have possibly found escapes me…

---

Comments

Please login to add a comment