Valpurgis Night

Since ancient times, people living in the northern hemisphere have, at the end of a period of frigid temperatures and darkness, had a need to celebrate the arrival of spring with cleansing bonfires and celebration.

Swedes do this on April 30, Walpurgis Night. By this time spring is already well established in the southern reaches of the country. Northerners, however, are often still grappling with the last of the winter, but even a full-blown snow storm does not seem to dampen the celebratory feeling on this particularly Swedish holiday and old tradition.

Swedes, young and old, come out in droves to say goodbye to the dark, dank, cold winter and welcome the advent of spring, the return of the sun and summer and with that hope. They do this by singing their hearts out around huge roaring community fires. In some parts of Sweden there are fireworks and everywhere there are parties. Choral singing is a popular pastime in Sweden, and this is one occasion when nearly every choral singer in the country lets rip.

This is the day when students in the university towns like Uppsala and Lund don their student caps with their white tops and yellow and blue lyre emblem above the peak. In Uppsala students gather by the thousands to do this at precisely three o’clock in the afternoon when an enormous roar cheers the arrival of spring and the students run down Carolinabacken. These days this is actually the only day of the year that students wear their cap. In the evening, below the castle, an eminent speaker delivers a speech in tribute to spring. The day ends with a spring ball at all the “nationer” - the student club houses - that goes on until the early hours of the morning and ends with a herring breakfast after which the foolhardy insist on taking a dip in the Fyris River. Originally the custom was to throw the winter headgear into the river. Another Uppsala tradition is a rough ride on the rapids - forsränning. This is actually a very new tradition, dating back to 1975 when two technology students challenged each other to a ride on the rapids. Today groups of students build creative watercraft to ride the rapids together.

Choral singing, which is a late addition to the ancient practice of gathering around a bonfire on the evening before May Day, probably derives from the manner in which students have celebrated the arrival of spring for the last two centuries.

The bonfire goes back much further. The lighting of bonfires was an ancient custom in Sweden as it was in many other countries. It is believed that the purpose of the fires was to scare off predators before the cattle and sheep were put out to graze. There could have also been some supernatural or magical purpose involved like protection from witches gathered to worship the devil on Walpurgis Night. The origins of the Swedish custom are to be found in the Walpurgis fires of northern Germany and since most German immigrants settled in Stockholm and its surroundings, the custom also started here and then spread to other parts of the country some of which had other bonfire evenings, for example, at Easter. But since the capital city often sets the tone, bonfires eventually became a tradition for the last day of April all over Sweden.

Walpurgis Night is also known as Walburga’s Eve - Valborgsmässoafton - as it is the eve of the feast of St. Walburga which comes on May 1. On the day of Valborg in earlier times it was customary to say a mass in her honour. Hence Valborgsmässoafton, which falls on the day before, signifies the eve of the mass or mässa.

Saint Valborg was born in 710 in Wessex in northwest England. She came from a religious family and was herself strong in her faith, as was her brother Wynnebald. Both Valborg and Wynnebald were missio-naries in Germany. Valborg later became a nun in the Benedictine Order while Wynnebald founded a monastery in Hildesheim in Germany. When he died in 761, Valborg took over the leadership of his monastery. She herself died around 776. One hundred years after her death she was canonized and declared a saint. May 1 was picked as her day and named after her.

A very old custom from southern Sweden, that had nothing to do with Valborg, was att sjunga maj i by - to sing May into town - on the last day of April. Young men would gather with a few musical instruments and large baskets and walk from farm to farm singing their May song. As a reward, they received eggs in their baskets for the ungdomsgille or feast they were arranging later.