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Sometimes only one parhelion is visible, and this is
thought to have given rise to other mythological tales.
In the Greek myth of Phaethon, Phaethon was the son
of Klymene, however, his father was absent. Upon questioning, Klymene told him that his father was Helios, the
Sun, so the presence of the Sun with one parhelion was
symbolic of Helios and his son Phaethon. The first clear
description of parhelia as an atmospheric phenomenon rather than the stuff of myth and legend comes
from a passage in a book written in 1533. In “Brotherly
Faithfulness: Epistles from a Time of Persecution”, Jakob
Hutter wrote, “My beloved children, I want to tell you
that on the day after the departure of our brothers
Kuntz and Michel, on a Friday, we saw three suns in
the sky for a good long time, about an hour, as well as
two rainbows. These had their backs turned toward
each other, almost touching in the middle, and their
ends pointed away from each other. And this I, Jakob,
saw with my own eyes, and many brothers and sisters
saw it with me. After a while the two suns and rainbows disappeared, and only the one sun remained.
Even though the other two suns were not as bright
as the one, they were clearly visible. I feel this was no
small miracle…” Two years later, in 1535, came the earliest pictorial record of parhelia in the form of a painting called “Vädersolstavlan”. This literally translates
ICY SCIENCE | WINTER 2013- 2014