The eve of St Walpurga’s Day
Walpurgis Night is the evening of 30 April, the eve of the feast of St Walpurga on 1 May. Walpurga was an eighth-century English-born missionary who became abbess of a convent at Heidenheim in Germany. Her feast is kept on 1 May because her relics were moved to Eichstätt on that day in 870. The date also falls on the eve of May Day and is linked with much older spring customs, especially bonfires.
Witches on the Brocken
In German folklore, Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht, or Hexennacht, “witches’ night”) is when witches were said to fly to the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz mountains, to meet. The legend was placed firmly on the Brocken in print in the seventeenth century, and Goethe’s Faust, with its Walpurgis Night scene on the mountain, made it famous. Towns around the Harz still hold Walpurgis festivals with costumes and fires. This countdown runs to sunset on 30 April where you are.
Bonfires and spring songs
In Sweden, Valborgsmässoafton (Valborg) is celebrated with bonfires and choirs singing to welcome the spring, a custom especially loved in university towns. Finland’s Vappu is a spring and student festival, and across central Europe the night is marked with fires of its own. Explanations for the fires vary: they are said to keep witches away, but they are also linked with the time when farm animals were let out to pasture.