Update On Our Temple Mission: The Last Celebration

The Witch Was Burned

Lighting Our Torches

As promised last week: a quick word about Sankt Hans aften. It wasn’t really quiet, but it wasn’t rowdy either. Sankt Hans aften is Midsummer’s Eve. As you can see in the photo gallery, the daylight at 10:30 pm is a good indicator of what the longest day of the year looks like at nighttime.

The Frederiksberg Ward High Priest Group celebrated this event last week while we were gathered at Hans and Lis Andersen’s summerhouse. The celebration started with a BBQ. (Everyone brought his or her own choice of meat). It was served with potatoes and salads. Dessert was rhubarb trifle. After dinner we hiked down to the beach to see the “burning of the witch”.

Walking to the Beach With Torches

On the way, we stopped to pick up a torch so we could participate in lighting the large pile of sticks, about 20 ft high, with a witch in effigy mounted on top. This was only one of thousands of such stacks of twigs throughout the land. Most of them along the coast.

“In Denmark, the solstitial celebration is called Sankt Hans aften (“St. John’s Eve”). It was an official holiday until 1770, and in accordance with the Danish tradition of celebrating a holiday on the evening before the actual day, it takes place on the evening of 23 June. It is the day where the medieval wise men and women (the doctors of that time) would gather special herbs that they needed for the rest of the year to cure people. It has been celebrated since the time of the Vikings by visiting healing water wells and making a large bonfire to ward away evil spirits. Today the water well tradition is gone. Bonfires on the beach, speeches, picnics and songs are traditional, although bonfires are built in many other places where beaches may not be close by (i.e. on the shores of lakes and other waterways, parks, etc.) In the 1920s a tradition of putting a witch made of straw and cloth (probably made by the elder women of the family) on the bonfire emerged as a remembrance of the church's witch burnings from 1540 to 1693. This burning sends the "witch" away to Bloksbjerg, the Brocken mountain in the Harz region of Germany where the great witch gathering was thought to be held on this day. Some Danes regard the symbolic witch burning as inappropriate.” Wikipedia

Norma Lighting the Fire

Everyone was pleased when the fire was lit. Though it burned for some time, the poor witch ignited and was gone in a few seconds.

There was no real “party atmosphere”. It was a quiet and pleasant evening with families gathered to picnic and enjoy the crackling of the large fire. Otherwise the weather was a little chilly.

We are back in Portland again. It was a long, but smooth, flight home. The majority of the family members met us at the airport. On the flight home one of the flight attendants said: “you look nice, why have you made this long flight wearing a suit and tie?” I had the opportunity to let her know it was because we were missionaries for the church. She said, “After so long time away from home will you travel around to visit your family?” I told her all eight children and twelve grandchildren live in Portland and would probably be at the airport. She said, “I gotta see that!” We put on a good “show” for her when she got off the plane.

Burning of the Witch

We met with President Rigby on Thursday. After a twenty minute meeting with him he said, “I release you from your full-time mission and I need to ask you to remove your missionary tags”. We knew then that we were finished with that mission.

On Friday we were in the Temple to witness the marriage sealing of our first grandson, McAllister Scroggs to his wife Denita.

Our social calendar is filling up fast, but we still feel tied to all of our wonderful brothers and sisters and friends in Denmark. We hope our thinking of them will not stop.