Summer Festivals

This series represents an innovative approach to the study of festivals. The author has collected together many of the best-known celebrations (both religious and secular) and combined them with a selection of more unusual events. The books have been written after extensive research of the origins of these celebrations and the texts have been checked by an experienced religious advisor. Many summer festivals are based on the celebration of the summer solstice. For the druids in pre-Roman Britain this was the beginning of the year. This custom still remains - each year modern Druids celebrate the solstice at Stonehenge. Other Celtic traditons continue in modern times, such as May pole and morris dancing on 1 May. This day is also a Workers' Holiday in many countries, such as the United Kingdom, China and the USSR where May Day parades are special events. Some of the most famous Independence Day celebrations are held in summer; France's Bastille Day (14 July), America's Independence Day (4 July) and Canada's Indpendence Day (first Monday of July). The founding of European settlements in the southern hemisphere are celebrated in their summer months: Australia Day (26 January), and in New Zealand the Treaty of Waitangi is celebrated on 6 February. People who have settled in England from the West Indies organize, in August, Europe's biggest street event - the Notting Hill Carnival. This book also includes the Eisteddfodau held in Wales and the Chinese Chung Yuan and Dragon Boat Festivals as well as the Japanese festival of O-bon.