Valborg – Walpurgis Eve

Bonfires and singing

For students, Walpurgis Eve is a foretaste of summer. Exams are soon over and only a few lectures remain before term ends. On the last day of April, the students don their characteristic white caps and sing songs of welcome to spring, to the budding greenery and to a brighter future.

Choral singing is a popular pastime in Sweden, and on Walpurgis Eve virtually every choir in the country is busy. In many villages and neighbourhoods, bonfires are lit at dusk, and people gather to experience that rosy red glow in the face from the heat of the fire and the freezing cold at the back. The spring sun may keep people warm, but when it sets the nights are still chilly.

A dish to warm you up at a time like this is nettle soup. Nettles are, of course, a weed. They quickly appear when the snow melts, contain large amounts of iron and are best when young and fresh.

Party or May Day demonstration?

Walpurgis celebrations are not a family occasion but rather a public event, and local groups often take responsibility for organising them to encourage community spirit in the village or neighbourhood.

Once the fire dies, many people move on to pubs and restaurants or to friends’ parties. The fact that Walpurgis Eve is followed by 1 May − a public holiday in Sweden since 1939 − means that people are not afraid of partying into the night.

Those who wish to can sleep throughout the following day, while others mark this traditional workers’ day of leave by joining one or other of the May Day demonstrations that parade through the streets of their town or village, beneath banners carrying slogans of a classical or more topical nature.