Today is Midsummer’s Day, a public holiday in Sweden and some other Nordic countries. Midsummer is one of the oldest and most important holidays in Sweden. Festivities start on the Friday before – Midsummer’s Eve (Midsommarafton).
Similar to New Year, the main celebrations take place on the eve of the day. Traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge maypole, in Swedish called the Midsommarstången.
Some believe it originated as a symbol of fertility. Even though the major fertility rites in ancient times, center around the beginning of spring, Midsummer was linked to an ancient fertility festival, as conception at this time would lead to a birth in March, which was traditionally seen as a good time for children to be born. Others think the shape of the pole has its roots in Norse mythology, and that it represents an axis linking the underworld, earth, and heavens. Many people will wear traditional folk costumes and listen to traditional music. It is also a holiday on which the Swedish will consume a large amount of alcohol and raucous drinking songs are a common sound during the celebrations.
Midsummer was considered to be one of the key times in the year when the power of magic was strongest and at it was thought to be a good time to perform rituals, particularly those which related to predicting the future. A tradition of this is one in which young people pick bouquets of seven or nine different flowers and put them under their pillow in the hope of dreaming about their future spouse.
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On this day in 1962, The “James Bond Theme”, first heard in the 1962 film Dr. No. The Bond Theme was recorded using five saxophones, nine brass instruments, a solo guitar and a rhythm section. The original recording of the theme was played by Vic Flick on a 1939 English Clifford Essex Paragon Deluxe guitar plugged into a Fender Vibrolux amplifier. Flick was paid a one-off fee of £6 for recording the famous James Bond Theme motif. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9-cDa4JCwM
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