Midsummer Mystique

Elsa Beskow

Who doesn't like midsummer?  It's magic, it's flowers, it's fairies, it's Shakespeare, it's summer, it's moonlight, and lots of moss!  

And who doesn't like fairy wings, tutus and dancing on the lawn!

It is one of the most important holidays in Sweden.  People have been making wildflower crowns for hundreds of years.  So of course, I made one too (I had to wear it around my neck though)! I had lots of fun collecting wildflowers with my young friends, who also enjoyed making bouquets and crowns!

My personal designer created this outfit on a gloomy, January day and I have long awaited the moment I could don this ensemble and flit with the fairies (fortunately I didn't get carried off to Fairyland!).

Elsa Beskow's book The Flowers' Festival is a very sweet children's book that takes place on Midsummer at the flowers' Midsummer celebration.  Growing up with her storybooks, this one was a favorite; I always enjoyed imagining what might happen if the flowers in my garden came to life too!

Arthur Rackham 

I have always loved Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream!  The confusion, the magic, the fairies and the donkey head make for a truly great Shakespearean comedy!  

Arthur Rackham 

Over hill, over dale,

Through brush, through brier,

Over park, over pale,

Through flood, through fire!

I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moon's sphere;

And I serve the Fairy Queen,

To dew her orbs upon the green;

The cowslips tall her pensioners be;

In their gold coats spots you see;

Those be rubies, fairy favours;

In those freckles live their savours;

I must go seek some dewdrops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. 

-Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Arthur Rackham 

Arthur Rackham is another one of my favorite illustrators.  His illustrations of A Midsummer Night's Dream perfectly capture the fairies' other worldly countenance and the magical, mysteriousness of the forest at night. 

Titania the Fairy Queen....

K.D. the Fairy Princess.

Many people celebrate with bonfires, but I didn't want to chance it with my tutu, so I went for some nice lanterns; they were a bit more my size and speed! 

Under a bower of fairy lights, it was a scene straight out of Shakespeare's Athenian forest.

Arthur Rackham

                 To see the Summer Sky

                 Is Poetry, though never in a book it lie -

                 True Poems flee.

-Emily Dickinson