Letter from Copenhagen/Brendan Killeen: There are two summers in Scandinavia. The first - the meteorological one - is as fickle as any in northern Europe although infinitely more reliable than its distant Irish cousin.
The second summer is part of the collective imagination and is much more reliable for it. It begins around May 1st and manifests itself in the adoption of an uncharacteristically Mediterranean approach to life. Long coats and long faces are replaced over night with short skirts, suspiciously well maintained tans and a steely determination to take to the outdoors.
Nothing sums up summer in Denmark quite like the Midsummer celebrations, which in Scandinavia still centre upon June 24th despite the fact that we know that the actual astronomical equinox takes place several days beforehand in the modern calendar year. In fact, the main celebrations are tonight, which is seen as the beginning of the old midsummer.
After Christmas, Midsummer is the largest festival in this neck of the woods and the locals celebrate the longest days of the year huddled around great bonfires, drinking, eating and singing. The glorious summer evenings, when the sun barely sets before rising again is the perfect backdrop to the festivities.
Adding to the atmosphere are gangs of school-leavers who celebrate their freedom by parading all over town on the back of open top trucks refuelling on beer and food at their respective houses along the route. For anything up to three weeks after the last exam they can be spotted wobbling from one party to the next, wearing white graduation caps which seem to bestow a type of 'diplomatic immunity' against all sorts of misdemeanours.
Of course the traditions surrounding Midsummer have their roots in ancient, pre-Christian celebrations extolling the gods of summer and fertility represented by the harvest while simultaneously attempting to banish less genial spirits through the burning of large bonfires. In the middle of the 10th century, the festivities were quietly transformed by the Christian church into a celebration of John the Baptist's birthday or Sankt Hans dag.
The saint's birthday is calculated by subtracting six months from the birth of Jesus, as John's Mother was deemed to be six months pregnant when Mary was visited by the angel. As Christmas day is actually celebrated on December 24th here, Saint John's big day is June 24th.
After the Reformation and Denmark's adoption of the Protestant faith, the established Church frowned upon what it saw as a pagan ritual but an act outlawing the celebrations in 1743 went unobserved as the locals refused to give up their annual summer party.
Today the religious significance has slipped away and the celebrations are entirely secular once again. However, Midsummer and a number of other ancient festivals throughout the year play a very important role in modern Scandinavian life. They are times to celebrate being Danish or Swedish or any of the other tribes that make up the Scandinavian psyche in the face of an onslaught from globalisation and globalisation's storm-trooper - the English language.
In Denmark, the education system, which teaches English very effectively from a young age, primes people for the absorption of foreign, primarily American, cultural influence. The ease of access and the popularity of American television, English language music and books have advantages in terms of producing a multi-lingual population. But it is also spawning a generation that is slightly confused. Whereas, past generations of children would have read Hans Christian Andersen in Danish, today's young children are just as likely to be reading Harry Potter in English. Many teenagers in Copenhagen dress like rappers, sprinkle their Danish with MTV slang and speak English with a drawl that John Wayne would have been proud of.
Large multinationals and up-and-coming indigenous companies, particularly in the technology sector, insist on American English as the language of business. E-mails, phone calls and meetings are all carried out in the language as Danish is relegated to the canteen.
However, tradition dies slowly here and tonight on beaches, in back gardens, fields, forests and city parks, great bonfires will be lit and the natives will gather around and drink, dance and make merry.
Last year on a nearby strand just outside Copenhagen proper, our local scout troop was sandwiched between a gay and lesbian group, who belted 'We are family' from a mobile disco unit, and the youth wing of the Danish Conservative Party, who huddled around a meagre bonfire singing songs such as 'Vi elsker vort land' or 'We love our country'. You'll never hear that one on MTV, but tonight the satellite TV stations and the American sitcoms take second place as the natives reaffirm their collective identity in an age old fashion.