Foto 2: L’altare dedicato a San Giovanni Battista nella chiesa della SS. Trinità a Case Troiano

The night of St. John, as we know it today, handed down to us by our grandparents, revived in recent years especially for commercial purposes and theatricalized for the use of the public who have moved away from the mystique of the sacred, originates from ancient rites: in the "youth of humanity" that had "intuition of the divine" as described  by Gennaro Finamore, the father of Abruzzo cultural anthropology according to whom the night of St. John It is a "monument of an earlier age in history, which time has undermined, but not destroyed".

Foto 3: L’altare devozionale, a Case Troiano, con San Giovannino, ramajetti e conca dell’acqua

The summer solstice, for the Babylonians, represented the marriage of the Sun with the Moon. The Moon, goddess of waters, and ruler of the sign of Cancer that begins with the solstice, are fertilized by the Sun.

A festival of pagan origin, which has always coincided with the summer solstice. During the  ritual large fires were lit, in Trojan houses, the task of organizing the bonfire with the scraps of tree pruning was the task of the male children and the eldest among them, with the characteristic three-pointed pitchfork, lit and controlled the pyre making sure that any fireflies did not spread through the fields,  Once the flames subside, the cronies jump together over the still living embers while the remains of these fires spread through the gardens and brought home as a sign of devotion.

Foto 5: La conca con l’acqua di San Giovanni che contiene fiori di lavanda e che sarà bevuta dopo la benedizione, da parte del prete, dai novelli compari che si sono scambiati il ramajetto

Danilo Borri points out that "On the night before St. John's Day  , many herbs also became magical, acquiring medicinal qualities. For example, the old man's beard was used to weave crowns that were put on the head to treat migraines, or to create belts that, tied around the hips, would fight rheumatic, muscular and abdominal pains (in the latter case in Sulmona). The fern flowers were collected in a handkerchief placed under a plant, which was then sewn to make a talisman with apotropaic but also coercive properties: the owners of this talisman could bend people's will and thus obtain all sorts of favors. Other herbs were used to prepare decoctions: elderberry, mallow, wormwood, mint... all rigorously harvested before dawn. An  oil used as a hair conditioner was obtained from the elm branches. People also went to the countryside or to the woods to "frighten" the fruit trees and tell them to guarantee a good harvest, saying: "O me djìe o te djìenghe!" striking the trunk with the head of the hatchet and circling the tree three times repeating the threat."

"On that evening, snails were eaten with the belief that eating the horns of the gastropod, a symbol of discord, would promote reconciliation between family and friends," explains Paolo Portone. And again: "Night was the most propitious time to gather certain medicinal herbs, when wise women, sorcerers, healers and herbarias (or herbs) went to the fields and gardens to stock up on St. John's wort, rue and mugwort, as evidenced by the documents of the courts that brought them to trial on charges of being in the service of the Devil. The domine herbarum were well aware that herbs such as St. John's wort, sage, rue, parsley, reached their balsamic time, i.e. the moment of greatest concentration of their active ingredient, at specific times of the year, such as the night between 23 and 24 June, ideal for harvesting the most common and used plants of the popular pharmacopoeia. In San Giovanni it was also traditional to buy or procure garlic, to propitiate a year of health and prosperity. To promote wealth, it was also recommended to pluck a fern branch at midnight and keep it indoors. Another widespread tradition was the collection of the green drupe of walnuts to prepare nocino, but great care had to be taken not to use metal tools in its processing. It was widespread among girls to place the so-called "herbs of St. John" under the pillow, tied in bunches in number of nine, among these indispensable was St. John's wort, which was said to be able to make "the face of the future groom" dream. And again, that the waters were transformed into precious substances and that the animals talked, while it was possible to see in the sky the passage of the witches on their way to the walnut tree of Benevento for the most celebrated".

Foto 6: Particolare di un Ramajetto