Midsummer night when is it

Yes, I do realise that we have the seasons, i. Skip to main content. Celebrate the Summer Season! By Catherine Boeckmann. June 21, A Midsommar celebration in Stockholm, Sweden. Source: The Old Farmer's Almanac. Related Articles Seasons Sun. Tags Midsummer Day When is What do you want to read next? Summer Solstice The First First Day of Spring The Winter Solstice The First Winter Solstice Brings a Full The Reason for the Seasons. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

Nearby, Oberon - King of the Fairies—has recently quarrelled with his queen, Titania. She acquired a magical child from one of her waiting women, and now refuses to hand him over to Oberon to use as a page. Oberon begins to plot a way to get revenge on Titania for her disobedience. He sends his fairy servant, Puck, to fetch a purple flower with juice that makes people fall in love with the next creature they see. Afterwards, Oberon overhears Helena and Demetrius arguing in the forest.

Oberon hears Demetrius mistreat Helena and tells Puck to anoint 'the Athenian', so Demetrius will fall in love with the first person that he sees.

Puck mistakes the Athenian and puts the flower juice on the eyes of the sleeping Lysander. When he is woken by Helena, he immediately falls in love with her and rejects Hermia. When Demetrius rests, Oberon puts magic juice on his eyes, which makes him fall in love with Helena as well. The workers' rehearsals in the wood are overheard by Puck, who plays a trick on them by giving Bottom an ass's head. After frightening the others away, Bottom is lured towards the sleeping Titania whom Oberon has anointed with Puck's magic flower juice.

On waking, the fairy queen falls in love with the ass and entertains him with her fairies. Meanwhile, Demetrius and Lysander, still under the spell of the flower juice, pursue Helena.

Hermia is jealous and confused about the lack of attention paid to her. Oberon and Puck watch the chaos, and Oberon commands Puck to put it right again. The lovers' arguments have tired them all out as they have chased one another through the woods. Puck eventually distracts the two men from their pursuit of Helena by impersonating their voices, and they get lost in the woods. Which makes this, yep, pretty close to the middle of summer. Shakespeare deserves a fair share of the blame as well, since the term "midsummer" would likely have exited our lexicon by now if not for his play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," a cultural touchstone if ever there was one.

So clearly we're in no hurry to let go of. Shakespeare, however, didn't pin the holiday to June 22, or any day, for that matter. He was referencing a mindset more than a calendar date.