The old English word for the solstice was sunstede — the standing still. June has two distinct characters: the building light of the first half, and the turn that begins after the 21st, almost too small to notice at first.

This episode covers June in its fullness, the plants coming into flower in the hedgerow, the creatures of the long evenings, the old customs of Midsummer, and what is overhead in the sky this month.

In the hedgerow: the elder in full flower, its folk tradition and the rules around cutting it. Honeysuckle (woodbine) and why Victorian girls were forbidden from bringing it indoors. St John’s Wort gathered specifically at Midsummer, its old name chase-devil, and its use as protection against spirits at the year’s most charged moment.

The glow-worm and why its cold light is declining. Badger cubs and fox cubs in ...