The whole village is hoping the rain stays away for this evening’s Feu de St Jean, an old custom that some of us have decided to revive.
Everyone in the village has been invited, including some members who haven’t spoken to one another for years. We have collected the wood for the big bonfire, gained the mayoral permission to close off the little street and ban parking from the village square and put out the tables and chairs for the expected throng. Everyone has been asked to bring a dish of food and a bottle.
Although it bears the name of saint, the event goes back to pre-Christian days: a midsummer night festival when after the food and wine and the fire dies down, husbands and wives, neighbours and children all leap hand in hand over the ashes of the bonfire to put behind us all the last year’s rows and arguments and start anew.
Everyone in the village has been invited, including some members who haven’t spoken to one another for years. We have collected the wood for the big bonfire, gained the mayoral permission to close off the little street and ban parking from the village square and put out the tables and chairs for the expected throng. Everyone has been asked to bring a dish of food and a bottle.
Although it bears the name of saint, the event goes back to pre-Christian days: a midsummer night festival when after the food and wine and the fire dies down, husbands and wives, neighbours and children all leap hand in hand over the ashes of the bonfire to put behind us all the last year’s rows and arguments and start anew.
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