Barnaby Bright

Today is Saint Barnabas Day. Known in Medieval Britain as "Barnaby Bright" because it coincided with the Summer Solstice. The tradition dates from those days before the 1752 Gregorian Calendrical Adoption when the solstice was moved up ten calendar days. Barnaby Bright was thus the beginning of Midsummer--or what was also popularly called the "Nightless Days." Hence, the nursery rhyme:

The day they called Barnaby Bright
Was the longest, and shortest at night.
The eleventh of June,
They would all sing a tune
As they basked in the languorous light.