Walpurgis Night
30 April 2026 — The broom is ready and the Brocken awaits! Let us dance till dawn!
Walpurgis Night is celebrated on the night before 1 May. In Germany it is best known around the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz mountains. According to folk legend, witches gather there on this night to welcome spring. The name comes from Saint Walpurga (Walburga), an Anglo-Saxon abbess of the 8th century who was canonised on 1 May (around 870), which is why the day bears her name. The beliefs and customs around the night blend Christian and popular traditions of driving away evil and greeting the new season. Today, towns in the Harz and across Germany hold masquerades, parades, music and dancing until morning. In many places people light big bonfires, and in the Harz many dress up as witches and little devils. The night is also famous in literature: Goethe describes a witches' gathering in Faust. On the calendar it falls roughly midway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, so it is often seen as a turning point from winter to summer. Late April is also a fine time to watch the spring constellations.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure made of bright dots and fine lines, like a constellation, a cheerful witch with a pointed hat riding a broom and trailing a glittering tail of stars as she glides across the night sky
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