Towards dusk a bonfire was lit and, one after another, the friends we were eating and drinking with hurdled the leaping flames, a pagan ritual thought to provide benefits including improved physical and mental strength, prosperity and fertility.
Further heat came from a sauna we made using five sacks of logs – too many, we agreed afterwards. When it got too hot, we escaped into the cool shallows of the pond just a few metres away, repeating this cycle several times.
As we soak up the long, light days of summer, I’m reminded of this magical time I spent in Lithuania celebrating the summer solstice, or Joninės as it’s called there. A suitable translation is Saint John’s festival, a public holiday celebrated each year on 23 and 24 June. The name pays homage to John the Baptist and coincides with his feast day, yet the traditions of Joninės are deeply rooted in the pagan celebration of midsummer, predating Christianity.
Swimming in a pond near Čiobiškis, during midsummer solstice. Photograph: Johnny Green
Similar pagan festivals take place in the Baltic nations of Estonia and Latvia, known as Jaanipäev and Jāņi, respectively. It’s a time when people travel from the city to gather in the countryside to eat, drink, sing and observe ancient folk traditions relating to fertility, harvest and renewal.
I travelled by train from Tallinn to Riga, and on to Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city, to meet my girlfriend, Jūratė. From there, it’s a further 50 miles east to just outside Čiobiškis, where we meet Jūratė’s extended family – about 80 of them, from newly borns to octogenarians, of which Julė is the elder and true matriarch presiding over the Joninės celebrations.
A short drive through the forest brings us to what resembles a bespoke and bijou festival, laden with copious amount of food and drink
The journey from Čiobiškis to the surrounding countryside requires us to take the small Padaliai-Čiobiškis ferry across the Neris river – travel at its most rustic and serene. This is followed by a short drive through a forest, which brings us to what resembles a bespoke and bijou festival, with family members having travelled from across Lithuania and beyond, all of us laden with copious amounts of food and drink for the two-day celebration.
It’s beautiful countryside – fairly flat and wooded, full of waterways providing an abundance of blue mixed with the verdant hues of surrounding vegetation, and punctuated with bright, colourful splashes from the many species of wildflower, such as lupin, cornflower, chicory, yarrow and buttercup.
We watch the Neris meandering downstream to the right, and two fishermen, Julius and Česiukas, attempting to catch a trout, perch, bream or perhaps salmon for the table. Meanwhile, Jūratė and her friend Eglė collect small posies of wild flowers to weave into flower crowns, symbols of love and fertility, while I rest on the riverbank enjoying this bucolic scene.
A summery sunset in Kaunas. Photograph: Airimas Vasiliunas/Getty Images
At the centre of the celebrations, beneath a huge structure created from local timber, tables have been joined together to form one great community banquet, flanked by benches on either side. It’s here I taste the intriguing-looking šakotis for the first time – a layered cake resembling a tree, made of butter, eggs, flour, sugar and cream, and cooked on a spit. Its jagged spikes look almost too sharp and angular to eat, but it’s delicious.
Dishes brought by Jūratė’s family include salted herring, chanterelles spread on rye bread, a beef and vegetable stew which is very much to my liking, and a boiled tongue wrapped in smoked pig’s ear, which is less so.
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A further ritual begins from midnight: the search for a fern that, legend has it, produces a magic, white flower on midsummer eve
Other delicacies include cepelinai, dumplings made from grated potato, filled with pork mince and served with bacon gravy and either sour cream or mushroom sauce. My favourite is balandėliai, cabbage leaves filled again with pork mince and served with potatoes. It’s hearty fare for the longest day of the year, washed down with the exquisite cherry liqueur Žagarės.
As another bonfire is lit, everyone gathers around the campfire to tell stories and sing traditional folk songs. It is believed that the brighter the flames, the more abundant the harvest will be. Beer, or alus, is in plentiful supply, but the more pagan among us opt for homemade sidras (cider) or the stronger still samanė (moonshine) all of which helps make camping a little more comfortable.
A further ritual begins from midnight: the search for papartis, a fern that, legend has it, produces a magic white flower on midsummer eve. Couples wander into the forest to hunt for this mythical bloom, discovering, perhaps, far more besides. I’m told the most common date that babies are born is 25 March, some nine months later on Gandrinės or Stork Day – with the arrival of the country’s national bird signifying the beginning of spring as they return from their winter migration.
Yet another name for summer solstice is Rasos, or Dew festival, since it is believed that dew collected on the morning of midsummer is especially potent for fertility, while wild herbs gathered on the night of Joninės are believed to possess magical and healing properties, since this is when nature is at its most powerful.
Jūratė (right) and her cousin Simona (left) wear flower crowns on family land outside Čiobiškis in Vilnius county. Photograph: Johnny Green
While paying our own dues to some of the ancient traditions, we also do things our own way, combining music from the radio station LRT Opus with further consumption of alus and Žagarės. I’m sure every family and group of friends celebrate differently, but all that really matters is being together, in nature, with skylarks visible high above and cuckoos audible in the woods.
The magnificence of Joninės was captured by the Lithuanian poet and philosopher Vydūnas, who described it as the “feast of the bonfire light meeting the all-encompassing sunlight”. As we make our way a few miles south to the hamlet of Mikalaučiškės for a gathering with some of Jūratė’s friends – since Joninės is very much about celebrating with friends as well as bloodlines – I think of those words written by Vydūnas a century ago. Today’s bonfire is already burning bright amid an everlasting twilight of deep orange, pink and blue, painted above the horizon.
Baltic Gently organises various Joninės packages across Lithuania, from €75 to €130