Between dawn and sunrise on St John’s Day, it is customary to place an oak or ash branch decorated with a bunch of herbs and flowers on front doors of houses and hermitages dedicated to the saint. Ears of wheat would also be added to the arrangement in earlier times, and a peeled splinter inserted in the wood of the branch to make a rustic cross. St John’s oak bouquet (sanjuan-haretxa, in Basque) is in point of fact a traditional symbol of the summer solstice. (more…)