Fairies for the Summer Solstice

We celebrated the summer solstice tonight with some friends.  Our yard is a pretty magical place on most nights.  There is a large oak tree under which we often sit and have a fire.  The shade garden is edged with an old iron headboard that I found curbside years ago.  Then a row of flat rocks leads around the forsythia bush to a bench and clusters of ferns and hostas.  Our tree house sits at the edge of the woods and if you duck your head under the low hanging maple branches you can walk down a worn path to the tall Beech trees and the rope swing my husband made for my 30th birthday.  There is "Puck's tree" which has a large hollow at the bottom and one summer secret notes were left back and forth from Puck and the kids. 

I love all the moss and roots and secret places.  Just the sort of places you might find fairies, especially on Midsummer's Eve. 

Tonight we had colored lanterns and watched for fireflies and there was a secret note tied up with string written in a fairy hand.  Our friends brought new potatoes with dill and sour cream and delicious cold salmon- a traditional Swedish Midsummer dish (I was told).  Madeleine read Mercutio's speech about Queen Mab from Romeo and Juliet then the grownups sat around the fire late into the night.  Everything was wonderful.

And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love.


The past few days we've kept these books about.

Fairyopolis

A Flower Fairies Journal

2005

Fairyopolis belongs to Madeleine and is one of the best collage type books. It's designed like the journal of Cicely Mary Barker (creator of the Flower Fairies). The illustrations and handwriting and all the little extras are just wonderful. 

Several years ago I had to buy the Deluxe Book of Flower Fairies.  It contains Barker's detailed illustrations and accompanying poems.  The fairies are divided into season and there are notes about each plant and a nice end note about the traditional meanings and uses of plants.

A Deluxe Book of Flower Fairies

Cicely Mary Barker 1998