Aurora Borealis Lights of the North Videos

Northern Light Myths & Secrets

For as long as humans have lived in the northern latitudes they have seen the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, and wondered at their cause and meaning. The lights are visible on 80-100% of nights in a band that sweeps across Alaska, dips southward across Canada, and then bends northward again. It crosses Iceland, the northern edge of Scandinavia, and northern Russia. Naturally, for the people living in these regions the phenomena were quite ordinary, but still spectacular. Yet, the lights are often visible much farther south, and are occasionally seen as far south as Mexico. Without scientific understanding the lights caused reactions of awe or fear. Oddly, there does not seem to be any correlation between sightings of UFOs and appearances of the Northern Lights. Not surprisingly, many of the legends consider the lights to be dancing spirits of some sort.

Norwegian folk tales call the lights the spirits of dancing maidens. Red lights were associated with fire and war. Supposedly the Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BC - 37 AD) saw the red glow and thought the city Ostia on the Tiber was burning. He sent his army to assist the city, but all they found was the blazing sky. Other Greek and Roman legends seem to indicate that the lights were believed to the entrances to celestial caves. The belief survives in the word, isochasm. Isochasms are geographical points which have the same frequency of appearances of the Aurora Borealis. The Alaskan Inuit peoples believed that the lights were living beings which would come closer if you whistled at them, and would retreat if you clapped.

Eskimos at Point Barrow, Alaska believed the lights to be evil, and they carried daggers against them. Yet other Eskimo groups believe the lights to be harbingers of good weather or good hunting, or that the highest and best heaven was located among the lights. Another common legend of the Alaskan natives is that the lights are the spirits, playing ball with a walrus head, and the motion and streaming of the lights represents the struggles of the spirits. Then there are myths about myths. It is often reported that the Vikings believed the lights to be reflections from the armor of warriors, and that the Bifrost Bridge, a trembling and fiery path for fallen warriors to travel to Valhalla, is the aurora. However, the reference to the armor comes from Bullfinch’s Mythology, not Norse writings. The Bifrost Bridge does appear in Viking literature, but it is clearly identified as the rainbow. On the Icelandic isle of Faeroe, children are warned not to leave home without a hat or the lights might burn off their hair!

As varied and fantastic as displays are of the Aurora Borealis it is no wonder that so many legends arose over the centuries.

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