Ivana Kupala, 7 July 2019

A good Kupala night to everyone marking it.

The part of this holiday I find most charming is the fern flower. On this night, the story goes, the fern blooms once, and whoever finds it gains extraordinary things — fortune, understanding, the ability to know what is hidden.

Ferns do not flower. They reproduce by spores and they have never produced a blossom in the entire history of the species. Everyone telling the story knows this perfectly well.

That is the elegance of it. The tradition sends young people into a dark forest at midnight to look for something that cannot exist, in pairs, on the shortest night of the year, and nobody involved has ever been confused about what is actually happening.

A good night to you, and to everyone searching diligently for botanical impossibilities.