в начале было слово. и слово было в творительном падеже
Северное сияние в фольклоре. много слов на английском (С) ВикипедияIn Bulfinch's Mythology from 1855 by Thomas Bulfinch there is the claim that in Norse mythology:
The Valkyrior are warlike virgins, mounted upon horses and armed with helmets and spears. /.../ When they ride forth on their errand, their armour sheds a strange flickering light, which flashes up over the northern skies, making what men call the "aurora borealis", or "Northern Lights". [17]
While a striking notion, there is nothing in the Old Norse literature supporting this assertion. Although auroral activity is common over Scandinavia and Iceland today, it is possible that the Magnetic North Pole was considerably further away from this region during the centuries before the documentation of Norse mythology, thus explaining the lack of references.[18]
The first Old Norse account of norðurljós is found in the Norwegian chronicle Konungs Skuggsjá from AD 1230. The chronicler has heard about this phenomenon from compatriots returning from Greenland, and he gives three possible explanations: that the ocean was surrounded by vast fires, that the sun flares could reach around the world to its night side, or that glaciers could store energy so that they eventually became fluorescent.[19]
An old Scandinavian name for northern lights translates as "herring flash". It was believed that northern lights were the reflections cast by large swarms of herring onto the sky.
Another Scandinavian source refers to "the fires that surround the North and South edges of the world". This has been suggested as evidence that the Norse ventured as far as Antarctica, although this is insufficient to form a conclusion.
The Finnish name for northern lights is revontulet, fox fires. According to legend, foxes made of fire lived in Lapland, and revontulet were the sparks they whisked up into the atmosphere with their tails.
In Estonian they are called virmalised, spirit beings of higher realms. In some legends they are given negative characters, in some positive ones.
The Sami people believed that one should be particularly careful and quiet when observed by the northern lights (called guovssahasat in Northern Sami). Mocking the northern lights or singing about them was believed to be particularly dangerous and could cause the lights to descend on the mocker and kill him/her.
The Algonquin believed the lights to be their ancestors dancing around a ceremonial fire.
In Latvian folklore northern lights, especially if red and observed in winter, are believed to be fighting souls of dead warriors, an omen foretelling disaster (especially war or famine).
In Russian folklore aurora borealis was associated with the fire dragon ("Ognenniy Zmey"), who came to women and seduced them in the absence of their husbands.
In Scotland, the northern lights were known as "the mirrie dancers" or na fir-chlis. There are many old sayings about them, including the Scottish Gaelic proverb "When the mirrie dancers play, they are like to slay." The playfulness of the mirrie dancers was supposed to end occasionally in quite a serious fight, and next morning when children saw patches of red lichen on the stones, they say among themselves that "the mirrie dancers bled each other last night". The appearance of these lights in the sky was considered a sign of the approach of unsettled weather.
Many prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush believed that the Northern Lights were the reflection of the mother lode of all gold. The most popular poem of the writer Robert W. Service from that era, The Cremation of Sam McGee, begins: "The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see, Was the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee." In The Ballad of the Northern Lights, Service refers to the theory that the source of the glow is an enormous deposit of radium in the polar region.
The Valkyrior are warlike virgins, mounted upon horses and armed with helmets and spears. /.../ When they ride forth on their errand, their armour sheds a strange flickering light, which flashes up over the northern skies, making what men call the "aurora borealis", or "Northern Lights". [17]
While a striking notion, there is nothing in the Old Norse literature supporting this assertion. Although auroral activity is common over Scandinavia and Iceland today, it is possible that the Magnetic North Pole was considerably further away from this region during the centuries before the documentation of Norse mythology, thus explaining the lack of references.[18]
The first Old Norse account of norðurljós is found in the Norwegian chronicle Konungs Skuggsjá from AD 1230. The chronicler has heard about this phenomenon from compatriots returning from Greenland, and he gives three possible explanations: that the ocean was surrounded by vast fires, that the sun flares could reach around the world to its night side, or that glaciers could store energy so that they eventually became fluorescent.[19]
An old Scandinavian name for northern lights translates as "herring flash". It was believed that northern lights were the reflections cast by large swarms of herring onto the sky.
Another Scandinavian source refers to "the fires that surround the North and South edges of the world". This has been suggested as evidence that the Norse ventured as far as Antarctica, although this is insufficient to form a conclusion.
The Finnish name for northern lights is revontulet, fox fires. According to legend, foxes made of fire lived in Lapland, and revontulet were the sparks they whisked up into the atmosphere with their tails.
In Estonian they are called virmalised, spirit beings of higher realms. In some legends they are given negative characters, in some positive ones.
The Sami people believed that one should be particularly careful and quiet when observed by the northern lights (called guovssahasat in Northern Sami). Mocking the northern lights or singing about them was believed to be particularly dangerous and could cause the lights to descend on the mocker and kill him/her.
The Algonquin believed the lights to be their ancestors dancing around a ceremonial fire.
In Latvian folklore northern lights, especially if red and observed in winter, are believed to be fighting souls of dead warriors, an omen foretelling disaster (especially war or famine).
In Russian folklore aurora borealis was associated with the fire dragon ("Ognenniy Zmey"), who came to women and seduced them in the absence of their husbands.
In Scotland, the northern lights were known as "the mirrie dancers" or na fir-chlis. There are many old sayings about them, including the Scottish Gaelic proverb "When the mirrie dancers play, they are like to slay." The playfulness of the mirrie dancers was supposed to end occasionally in quite a serious fight, and next morning when children saw patches of red lichen on the stones, they say among themselves that "the mirrie dancers bled each other last night". The appearance of these lights in the sky was considered a sign of the approach of unsettled weather.
Many prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush believed that the Northern Lights were the reflection of the mother lode of all gold. The most popular poem of the writer Robert W. Service from that era, The Cremation of Sam McGee, begins: "The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see, Was the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee." In The Ballad of the Northern Lights, Service refers to the theory that the source of the glow is an enormous deposit of radium in the polar region.