The beliefs of aurora borealis

The aurora borealis is also called the Northern Lights, visible in the night sky in the far north. These Northern Lights are spectacular, colourful, pretty and full of magical stories. In the northern hemisphere, the Northern Lights are mainly seen above Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Canada, Finland and Scotland. It's rare for the Northern Lights to appear in the south of Europe, although it has done this in the past a few times. This would mean there was a tense level of solar activity and the aurora borealis showed as red coloured, giving it a more frightening appearance to the people back then who didn't understand what the Northern Lights really were. 

The name "aurora borealis" is Latin and means "sunrise wind". Aurora is a Roman goddess and she rode a chariot of many colourful lights to bring a new day. It was believed that Aurora is the sister of Sol the sun god and Luna the moon goddess. 

People that witnessed the Northern Lights in the past, associated it with omens. The aurora borealis appeared fiery red coloured lights over France and Italy, who were afraid that it meant coming plague and war, even famine. Red coloured Northern Lights showed in England and France at a time soon before the French Revolution. However, the Swedish found the aurora borealis a good omen, and celebrated it. These lights were considered a sign of a good harvest, decent weather and successful farming. 

In Scandinavia, it was believed it was bad luck for a pregnant woman to look at the Northern Lights. It was even more worse if a woman looked at these lights while giving birth, as it was said it will result in a child with bad eyesight or blindness. In Greenland it was believed that the aurora lights were the souls of babies who were stillborn and also who had died prematurely. The Sami believe the lights are created by whales of the ocean. The Finnish believe that the lights are a creation of magical fire fox creatures. In Norse mythology, the lights are the glowing colours of the beautiful Valkyrie, maidens who ride across the sky, and of Bifrost, the rainbow bridge that connects the realms.   

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