Happy National Sleepy Head Day! This downright goofy Finnish holiday is based on the idea that whoever in the household wakes up latest on July 27 would be lethargic for the rest of the year. To wake them up, everyone else had the right to drench them in water. Sometimes, that was done by throwing it at them, and sometimes by picking them up and throwing them into a lake.
The holiday has its roots in the story of the Seven Sleepers, a legend in both the Christian and Islamic faith traditions about children who hid from Roman persecution. That story has been around since the early sixth century, at the latest. Sleepy Head Day is only tangentially related and has been around since the Middle Ages, too. Today, the celebration revolves around a yearly event in the city of Naantali, where one local celebrity is dumped off a stretcher into the harbor at 8 a.m. Of course, it’s not just people gathering to watch someone be dunked; there’s plenty of fun and games to be had, too.
