Latvian national holiday
6:21AM on June 23, 2009
Ligo or Jani is a Latvian festival held in the night from 23 June to 24 June to celebrate the summer solstice (Midsummer), the shortest night and longest day of the year. The day of Ligo (23 June) and the day of Jani (24 June) are public holidays, and people usually spend them in the countryside. The festival's eve is held in the evening of 23 June and goes on all through the night Jani night , where people Ligo (sway) into the following day.
Jani is thought to be the time when the forces of nature are at their most powerful, and the boundaries between the physical and spiritual worlds are thinnest. In the past, evil witches were believed to be riding around, so people decorated their houses and lands with rowan branches and thorns in order to protect themselves from evil. In modern days other traditional decorations are more popular, including birch or sometimes oak branches and flowers as well as leaves, especially ferns. People wear wreaths made from flowers for females, or oak leaves for males; in rural areas livestock is also decorated.
Jani also is thought to be the perfect time to gather herbs, because it is believed that they then have magical powers. Other practices of magic in Jāņi vary from fortune-telling to ensuring productivity of crops, as well as livestock fertility. A well-known part of this celebration is searching for the mythical fern flower, though some suggest that the fern flower is a symbol of secret knowledge; today it is almost always synonymous with having sexual relationships. Despite common belief, no remarkable increase in birthrates is observed nine months later.
Another important detail is fire: A festival fire must be kept from sunset till sunrise, and various kinds of flaming light sources are used; usually these are bonfires, which traditionally people jump over to ensure prosperity and fertility. Traditional food during Jani is a special type of cheese with caraway seeds, made out of curd, and the traditional drink is beer. Many people make the cheese of Jani themselves; a few also make their own beer.
Representatives of Latvian Emergency services often warn that Jani can be harmful to health because of the amounts of food and alcoholic beverages consumed, as well as maltreated fires.
***Material from wikipedia
So that incredibly popular Jani-Ligo festival is our favourite holiday, because of fire and beer lol Oh and also searching for the fern flowers as an exuce for going into the forest for sex lol
***My short summary lol
would YOU like to participate ???
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