Today is 20th June or the longest day of the year. The Anglo Saxons knew a thing or two about Midsummer, calling it "sunstead" which translates into Latin as "solstice". They also called 20th June "se lengsta daeg", the longest day.
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| The sun in an 11th century English manuscript |
This is a snippet from an Anglo Saxon poem the Menologium, composed in the second half of the 10th century, cataloguing the cycle of the year and the saints' feasts which occur in each month:
In June, when the jewel climbs up
highest in the year into the heavens
brightest of stars...
At the time the fairest of lights
likes to gaze longer upon the earth,
to move more slowly across the meadows.
Such a beautiful description of the night of the solstice.