PEUPLELOUP
Green lights streaming across the sky in northern Canada
northern lights for the first time. They had several
theories for what they were seeing. They thought
perhaps Greenland lay on the outermost edge of the
earth and the light they were seeing was the leftover
sun of the day. Others believed the icebergs and
snow that dominated the scenery were so powerful
they were able to emit these flames.
In more recent years, many have suggested a
connection between the god Ullr and the northern
lights. His name means “glory, or shining” and
scholars have thought there was a connection
there despite the lack of concrete proof in Old
Norse literature. Also, there are some mentions
in Old Norse mythology that the armour of the
Valkyries “sheds a strange flickering light, which
flashes up over the northern skies” and that this is
the cause of the northern lights.
North America
In North America, much of the folklore relates to
the spiritual world and departed ancestors. The
Forager 2 Fall 2015
tales tell of the native peoples’ special relationship
with death. For the most part, they do not fear it:
they believe the northern lights are their departed
loved ones, or animals they worshipped and hunted,
that live in the sky.
The anthropologist Ernest W. Hawkes wrote
The Labrador Eskimo after his 1914 trip to the coast
of Labrador. Hawkes travelled alongside those he
was studying and his book (published in Ottawa in
1916) reports on everything he saw, from clothing
to burying rituals. Hawkes spent many months at a
time among aboriginal people and recounts many
of their rituals and myths in his book. One of the
myths from his book is below:
The Heavenly Regions
The ends of the land and sea are bounded by an
immense abyss, over which a narrow and dangerous
pathway leads to the heavenly regions. The sky is a
great dome of hard material arched over the Earth.
There is a hole in it through which the spirits pass to
the true heavens. Only the spirits of those who have
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