Midzomernacht

Midzomernacht is the night before the midsummer knighting in the Kingdom of Dagonaut, a formal test of a candidate’s readiness to serve. For Tiuri, it becomes both the night he leaves the prescribed path to help someone and the beginning of a journey through which he proves, before receiving the title, that he has the character of a knight.

The ritual and its demands

The candidates selected for knighthood must spend the preceding twenty-four hours fasting, taking neither food nor drink, and then keep watch through the night in a small chapel outside the walls of the City of Dagonaut. Their swords lie before the altar; dressed in white, they kneel in reflection and prayer. The vigil is meant to prepare them for the task ahead and to focus their promises: to serve Dagonaut loyally, to be honest and helpful, and to fight for what is good.

The rules make the vigil a test of discipline as well as devotion. Candidates must not sleep or speak, or listen to a voice from the outside world. At seven in the morning, a delegation of knights is to fetch them and lead them before the king. The ceremony belongs to the midsummer observances: on Midzomerdag the king knights those who have been found worthy. For Tiuri, the rules are not an abstract prelude to ceremony; the story begins on the night they are put to the test.

Tiuri breaks the vigil

Tiuri is the youngest of the five young men keeping watch, only sixteen. During the night, a voice calls for help. He leaves the chapel rather than ignore it, interrupting the vigil and forfeiting the expected route to knighthood. When he later stands before King Dagonaut, he says that he wants to explain why he ran from the chapel on Midzomernacht. The king has heard something of what happened from Ristridin, but asks to hear the whole account from Tiuri himself.

The king explains the consequence in terms of the ritual’s rules: the candidates are chosen in a cycle of four years, tested in advance, and expected to complete the vigil. By leaving and heeding the outside voice, Tiuri has broken a rule. Yet the same choice sets his conduct against the purpose of the test. He answers a plea for help, completes his mission, and fulfils his promise to Edwinem. The night that appears to disqualify him thus begins the series of actions through which he demonstrates the quality the ceremony is meant to recognize.

A second vigil after the journey

After his return, Tiuri is formally knighted by King Dagonaut, who declares him a knight and gives him a white shield at King Unauwen’s request. Later, Tiuri is again kneeling on the chapel’s stone floor, watching a candle flame. The scene briefly seems to him like a dream: he imagines that his companions are still there and that the call to open the door, and everything that followed, might have been imagined. Looking around, he finds himself alone, with his white shield hanging above the altar.

This later vigil reverses the circumstances of the first. Tiuri is no longer one of several unknighted candidates waiting to be fetched before the king; he has returned alone, after the mission and the ceremony. He remains awake through the night and rises only when the first sunlight glows at the chapel windows. His return makes Midzomernacht more than a single interrupted rite: the chapel becomes the place where he can measure the distance between the boy who left and the person who has come back.

From rule to demonstrated character

The king tells Tiuri that, had he ignored the request for help, he would now have been a knight by the expected route. Because he answered it, completed the mission, and kept Edwinem’s promise, the king argues that Tiuri has already shown himself to be one. The sword’s formal touch confirms an identity his choices have earned rather than creating it. Midzomernacht therefore holds together two different measures of knighthood: obedience to the ritual and service to the good for which the ritual prepares its candidates.

In the chapel after his return, Tiuri understands that his experiences can be regarded as a trial. He thinks of the people he met and the friends he made, and of the future that still lies ahead. His final promise to himself is to try to be a good knight. The night’s meaning has shifted from silent preparation for an imposed test to conscious reflection on a life and responsibility he has chosen.