The common Lithuanian name for its Midsummer folk festival is Joninės.
Joninės is the Lithuanian form associated with Saint John’s Day, celebrated on 24 June and traditionally beginning on the evening of 23 June. The festival also retains older names, including Rasos, meaning “Dew Holiday,” and Kupolė, reflecting pre-Christian seasonal customs surrounding vegetation, water and the summer solstice.
Traditional celebrations include bonfires, singing, dancing, flower-wreath making and torchlit processions. Young people may search at midnight for the mythical fern flower, believed to bloom for only a moment and bring good fortune to its finder. Dew collected before sunrise was traditionally associated with healing, beauty and a successful harvest.
Joninės is not the same as Vėlinės, the Lithuanian observance connected with the dead, nor Kūčios, the Christmas Eve meal and celebration. The festival became an official public holiday in Lithuania in 2004, and it is celebrated nationwide as well as by Lithuanian communities abroad.