St. John’s Day.
But, above all, June is the month of rustic merriment, with the fêtes of St. Antony, St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter. Happily no attempts to dislodge these saints from their pre-eminence in the mind of the people have hitherto succeeded. The eve of St. John continues to be celebrated with festivities far more joyous and interesting than the bourgeois fête of Carnival, in which the real people takes little part. (At Lisbon the Carnival lasts not one day but many, and is marked by a good deal of vulgarity and absence of originality. Indeed, it would be utterly tedious but for the striking miniature peasant costumes in which it is the custom to dress up small children.) St. John the Baptist is the true popular patron saint of Portugal, and around St. John’s Eve the popular fancy has woven a rich fairy web of legend and superstition. In all the world, says a cantiga, this day is celebrated—
São João não ha no mundo
Quem não queira festejar:
Este dia é mui sob’rano,
Esta noite é singular.
The very Moors observe it in Moordom—
Até os Mouros da Mourama
Festejão o São João.
He is set above all the other saints: there is none like him, none—