Nature’s Light Show

The year was 1859. Several astronomers around the world who had been studying the sun reported a massive, almost blinding burst of light ejecting from the sun’s surface, lasting for several long minutes before it subsided. The next day, the Carrington Event occurred, in which the sky in much of the world lit up like a gaudy Christmas lights display. It was bright enough at night to read a newspaper without an additional light source. Although several astronomers hypothesized a connection between the sun burst and the aurora, it was Richard Christopher Carrington who got his name attached to that incident.

Science

In 1619, Galileo Galilei coined the term “aurora borealis.” He thought they were reflections emanating from the sun.

In 1790, the French-born English scientist Henry Cavendish used triangulation to determine that the aurora borealis occurred approximately 60 miles above the Earth’s surface.

In 1898, and for the next couple of years, physicist Olaf Kristian Birkeland organized several expeditions to northern Norway, Iceland, and several other sub-Arctic sites to measure Earth’s geomagnetic field. The link between solar activity and Aurora displays became obvious. He postulated that the Sun emits electrons that travel to Earth, are directed by the magnetic field to the North magnetic pole, and the auroras are generated. He published his conclusions, but the idea was so novel, he was met with skepticism by the scientific community. We now know he had the science substantially correct.

Early Depictions

Auroras have been a source of wonder and fear throughout the millennia, as humans have struggled to explain them. We have no way of knowing the stories they may have spawned before writing was invented, but people would certainly have seen them and speculated about what they might mean.

Caves in the South of France are a rich source of early man’s artwork depicting animals, people, and celestial objects. Several paintings have been found which appear to portray the Northern Lights. The image below is one of those. It’s been dated to approximately 30,000 BC and it doesn’t look like much to the naked eye. But with the wonderful scanning technology used by archaeologists and paleontologists, the finest of degraded details can be brought to new light in exquisite detail. It does seem to be the representation of an auroral event.

As soon as humans began writing, they wrote everything: their history and myths (often one and the same), their observations, their deeds, their laws, and just about everything else. Every culture who lived where auroras could be observed, whether frequently or infrequently, had something to say about them.

Cultures that hadn’t invented writing yet just passed down stories from generation to generation until another civilization came along which could write the stories down for them.

The earliest known written record of the northern lights was inscribed on cuneiform tablets by Assyrian astronomers around 679-655 B.C. A royal astronomer under Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar II inscribed his report of the phenomenon on a tablet dated to 567 B.C. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) described them in his book “Meteorology” as resembling the flames of burning gas. He said that when they emitted sparks and rays, they looked like jumping goats. A Chinese report from 193 B.C. also told about an aurora.

Ancient Myths

Ancient Greece and Rome

These two are together because they shared so many of the same myths and legends. They were too far south to see the northern lights very often, but they were occasionally blessed with a show.

Both the Greeks and Romans thought the Goddess of the Dawn was racing across the sky in her chariot. Incidentally, the Greeks called her Eos and the Romans called her Aurora, but otherwise, she was basically the same goddess in both cultures.

In A.D. 34, the Roman Emperor Tiberius Caesar mistook a spectacular display of the northern lights as the glow of a fire in the port town of Ostia. He dispatched men to go there to investigate, but it turned out to be just an unusually bright aurora.

Norse Mythology

Norsemen (Vikings), spread themselves out over such a wide area, maybe they were mixing their own myths with those of the various cultures they were mixing with, because they had so many different ideas of what the Northern Lights were, such as:

• The lights were reflections from the shields and armour of the Valkyries
• They were Bifröst, the rainbow bridge that connects Asgard (the realm of the gods) to Midgard (the realm of mortals).
• Some Norsemen celebrated the lights, believing they were earthly manifestations of their gods.
• Some Norsemen feared them, telling stories of the dangers they posed and developing superstitions to protect themselves.
• The lights were the spirits of children who had died in childbirth and were dancing and playing in the sky.
• Some believed they were the breath of brave soldiers who died in combat.

Other Scandinavian & Eastern European Myths

• Sweden: They saw the lights as a sign of good news and prosperity which would bring good harvests for farmers and great catches for local fishermen.
• Norway: Norwegians thought the Northern Lights were the souls of maids dancing in the heavens and waving at the people on the ground.
• Finland: They believed that foxes made of fire ran through the snow so fast that sparks flew out of their tails and shot up into the evening sky, creating the lights.
• Denmark: The Danish believed that auroras were caused by swans competing to see who could fly further north. Some swans became trapped in the ice and as they flapped their wings trying to escape, they created the flurries of snow which became lights in the sky.
• Estonia: The Estonians believed that the lights were elaborate sleighs drawn by horses that carried guests in the heavens to a splendid wedding.
• Sámi Culture: They thought the lights were the souls of the dead, and you must stay indoors when they appeared, lest they reach down and carry you up into the sky, or they might even chop off your head!

Iceland
Icelandic people believed that as long as a mother didn’t look at the Aurora, she would experience less pain during delivery, and if she did look, her child would be born cross eyed.

Greenland

The Inuits of northern Greenland believed dead human spirits were playing games by throwing a walrus skull across the sky.

North America

Indigent Americans had many different interpretations of the Northern Lights. Some stories described them as torches held by spirits who were leading the souls of the recently deceased to the afterlife. Some native communities found them comforting, and others believed they were an evil omen.

Other beliefs include:

• Alaskan Inuits: They feared the lights and carried knives to ward themselves against the evil spirits of the aurora.
• Algonquins: They believed the creator god Nanabozho was lighting a huge fire to let his people know that he was thinking of them.
• Crees: They thought the lights were a physical manifestation of the spirits of their dead ancestors, who were trying to communicate with their families and friends who still lived on Earth.
• Menominees: They believed the lights were the glow of torches being used by giants as they were fishing at night.
• Great Plains Tribes: Many thought the lights were the glow of fires lit by northern tribes under huge pots to cook their enemies. The Mandan people of North Dakota had a similar belief.
• Fox Tribes: They believed the lights were the spirits of their slain enemies threatening pestilence and war.
• Makahs: They thought the lights were from fires built by dwarfs who were cooking whale blubber.

Australia

Being in the southern hemisphere, it’s the Aurora Australis over the south pole that the Aboriginals witnessed on rare occasions, mainly in the extreme southern portions of Australia. The Aborigines believed the lights were manifestations of their gods dancing in the sky above.

China

They thought the lights resulted from a battle between a good dragon and an evil one.

Japan

They believed that a child conceived under the Northern Lights would be blessed with good fortune, good looks and intellect.

Medieval Europe

Scottish legend declared the lights to be the children of Beira, the Queen of all Winter. These were known as the “Merry Dancers” or “Nimble Men”. These dancers were fallen angels engaged in an epic battle in the sky. Bloodstones are commonly found in the Hebrides, and the Scots believed the red markings were drops of blood that fell from the sky onto the stones as the battle raged on.

Italians believed that the lights were a harbinger of bad times ahead, such as plagues or war.

In 1570 A.D, a spectacular aurora was witnessed over several countries in middle Europe. An unknown artist thought they looked like candles or torches burning above the clouds and rendered this perception in a drawing which is now displayed at the Crawford Library in Edinburgh’s Royal Observatory.

A blood red aurora shone over England, France, and Scotland mere weeks before the French Revolution broke out. People thought it must have been a sign.

Today

Isn’t it wonderful that people have access to modern scientific knowledge nowadays and no longer have to be afraid of the northern or southern lights and develop conspiracy theories about them? Oh wait, never mind.