Copenhagen's Night That Never Gets Dark

On Midsummer Eve they burn a witch, sing a hymn, and keep going until sunrise.

In New Orleans we know how to stay out all night, but we have the decency to do it in the dark. On Sankt Hans Aften, the midsummer evening, Copenhagen barely gets dark at all, and the whole city goes down to the water to burn a straw witch and sing about it.

I started in Kødbyen, the old meatpacking district, where the white-tiled butcher halls are now restaurants. At Slagterhallen Lys I ate crispy pork with parsley sauce, which was heavier than anything at home, and I say that as a woman raised on gumbo.

At Islands Brygge people were swimming in the harbour baths at ten at night, in full daylight, shrieking. I put my feet in and decided that was enough Viking for one evening. The bonfire I found was at Refshaleøen, an old shipyard turned playground for grown-ups. A crowd sang the midsummer song, everyone knowing the words but me, and the witch went up in sparks and flew off, they told me, to a mountain in Germany.

At one in the morning, the sky still deep blue, I was at Bar Natlys on Jægersborggade, drinking aquavit with strangers who had decided I was their American. At three the northern sky turned pale again. I walked home along the lakes, perfectly sober, pretending.

Lived June 23, 2026.