There are a number of superstitions and customs in connection with this festival.
On the hills in the neighbourhood of towns in North Sweden people light fires at this season. These are but a reminiscence of the “pyre,” built on consecrated hills by the old heathen priests, and fired on Midsummer Eve in honour of the sun-god, the mild and beautiful Balder. Nowadays these fires are not in honour of Balder, but to prepare coffee. Many families do this. Each family has its own fire. They put the coffee on the fire when the sun is setting, but, as in these northern regions at this season of the year the sun takes little rest, he has risen again before the coffee has boiled.
Sometimes people gather different kinds of flowers to make up into a bouquet called a Midsummer qvost. Whoever does it, usually a young girl, must go alone. If she should encounter anyone, she must only answer by signs, and must not open her mouth under any circumstances until she gets home again. She places the bouquet under her pillow, and never fails to see in her dream her future lover.
This qvost has many wonderful qualities. It is hung up in the cattle-house, and if allowed to remain there protects the animals for a whole year against the troll (witches).
In some places a medicine is made from it, which will cure all diseases.
CHAPTER XVI
SOME WELL-KNOWN SWEDES
Carl Linnæus was the son of a poor clergyman, and was born at Råshult, in the province of Småland, in 1707. His father wished him to become a clergyman, but from infancy he showed a great love for flowers, and made up his mind to study medicine. He was a student at Upsala, where he underwent great privations, as his father allowed him only eight pounds per year. He so persevered that he attracted the attention of the professors, and was commissioned to study the plant-life of Swedish Lapland.
Poverty drove him to Holland for his degree as doctor of medicine. He found a friend there in a Dutch banker, Clifford, who enabled him to publish many works, in one of which he made known his classification of plants. At this time he visited London, and when walking on a common near the City saw furze for the first time. He was so attracted by the golden bloom of the flower that he fell down on his knees and admired it. He tried in vain to cultivate it in Sweden. On his return to Stockholm, he gained a reputation as a physician, but gave up his profession to be professor of botany in the University where he had studied. He attracted students from all parts, and gained a world-wide reputation, his class increasing from five to hundreds. He was made a noble, and when he died, aged seventy-one years, the King spoke from the throne of his death as being a national calamity.