Every year, on June 24, Romanians celebrate the Midsummer Day, which is the Bedstraws Fairies feast. People think this night is magic, miracles are possible, beneficial forces, but also negative ones, reach the climax. According to the legends, the Bedstraws Fairies are some very beautiful girls, who live in forests or plains. They turn flowers and weeds into vulnerary herbs, able to cure all diseases.
Evil Goddesses
If people don?t celebrate the Fairies in an appropriate way, they turned into evil goddesses, taking vengeance upon the women and men who didn?t respected the feast. Terrible punishments wait the perjures, for the Fairies are real justice keens.
A Love Feast
Midsummer Day is also a love feast. The marriageable girls, wearing white dresses, gather in the village in the vesper, laughing and singing. They elect the most beautiful and diligent among them and ornate her with wheat ear. Their procession is the reminiscence of an ancient Dacian cult of the Sun. Our ancestors the Thracians used to represent them chained in a vertiginous round dance. The young boys light fires on the hills and cross the villages, wearing bedstraws at their heats.
Bitter Misfortunes
The ceremony expands then to the whole village. The elder inhabitants say that on Midsummer Day the fairies gather and dance in the forest. Those who see them remain silent forever or get mad. They believe that whoever fails to celebrate the feast is exposed to bitter misfortunes: those who work in this day can die hit by lightning.
