St. John’s Eve

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia was released to theaters 84 years ago in 1940. It is still popular as an amazing accomplishment in animation of a feature-length movie. It features a number of animated presentations, each accompanied by music of classical composers: Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Bach, Schubert, Dukas, Ponchielli, and Mussorgsky. It is probably most famous for Mickey Mouse’s portrayal of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice to the eponymous composition of Paul Dukas. The most dramatic and scariest episode is the penultimate one that depicts the massive satanic prince Chernabog opening from the pinnacle of the mountain and his hobgoblins, ghosts, and witch followers rising from the depths of the earth and cemeteries to frolic in the night on the Bald Mountain (Lysa Hora) in Ukraine.

The tone poem Night on Bald Mountain, composed by the Russian Modest Mussorgsky, is a favorite for Hallowe’en, the eve of All Saints Day. The saints — or “hallows” — are collectively observed by Christians and celebrated on November 1 each year. Many interpret the eve as symbolically representing as the frolic of the witches, devils, ghosts, and their master Satan. At the coda, the Angelus Bell signals the dawn and the triumph of the saints. Chernabog folds back into the mountain, the demons are cast into hell, the ghosts go back to their graves. A procession of monks with torches walk toward an old cathedral to the strains of Schubert’s Ave Maria.

While that is one way of looking at Mussorgsky’s composition and Disney’s use of it, the night the composer had in mind was not Hallowe’en, but rather the eve of the feast of John the Baptist, today, June 23. The Gospel of Luke in Chapter One relates that John was born six months before Jesus. Traditionally, Jesus’ nativity occurred around the time of the winter solstice. Thus John’s birth would have coincided with the summer solstice by the calendar then used, June 24. Thus, June 23 is Saint John’s Eve when Satan and his minions and ghosts fly and dance about the mountain. Their frolic ends when the bell at dawn announces the birthday of John the Messiah’s harbinger.

The solstices have religious and cultural, as well as scientific, significance. Almost all faiths have attached important events to each. For Christians, Jesus was born at that time. The Druids in ancient Britain probably erected Stonehenge as an instrument to ascertain the solstices for their worship purposes. Timing of the summer solstice has been observed since the Neolithic era, with many ancient monuments in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas aligned with sunrise or sunset on the summer solstice. The term “Midsummer” refers to the time around the summer solstice. Notwithstanding astronomical observations, Northern European cultures have considered it to be June 23 – 24.

The astronomical summer solstice arrived early this year on June 20. I’ll leave the answer as to why to meteorologists and astronomers. Depending on the calendars used, the dates when the sun reaches perpendicularity with the highest and the lowest latitudes observed in the earth’s hemispheres have been the 20th– 25th of June and December respectively. Popularly they are called the longest and shortest days of the year and the beginning of the winter and summer season.