Just in case you haven’t heard, next Monday, April 8, 2024, is a solar eclipse. Because I live in the Midwest, we will handle it the same way we handled the last big eclipse; we won’t see it because it will be cloudy and overcast. But some of you may have a part in the clouds and be able to glimpse (with the proper eye protection, please) the moon coming between the earth and the sun and blocking the sun for up to about four minutes.
Of course, we wouldn’t be chatting about the eclipse unless there were some pretty cool superstitions about it. According to timeanddate.com, some legends surrounding solar eclipses involve mythical figures eating or stealing the Sun.
“In Vietnam, people believed that a solar eclipse was caused by a giant frog devouring the Sun, while Norse cultures blamed wolves for eating the Sun.
In ancient China, a celestial dragon was thought to lunch on the Sun, causing a solar eclipse. In fact, the Chinese word for an eclipse, chih or shih, means to eat.
According to ancient Hindu mythology, the deity Rahu is beheaded by the gods for capturing and drinking Amrita, the gods’ nectar. Rahu’s head flies off into the sky and swallows the Sun, causing an eclipse.
Korean folklore offers another ancient explanation for solar eclipses. It suggests that solar eclipses happen because mythical dogs are trying to steal the Sun.”
Other superstitions were a little more physical. Almanac.com shares these superstitions with us:
“Native people in Colombia shouted to the heavens, promising to work hard and mend their ways. Some worked their gardens and other projects especially hard during the eclipse to prove it.
Fear led Chippewa people to shoot flaming arrows into the sky to try to rekindle the Sun. Tribes in Peru did the same for a different reason; they hoped to scare off a beast attacking the Sun.
In India, many believe that when an eclipse occurs, a dragon is trying to seize the two orbs. People immerse themselves in rivers up to their necks, imploring the Sun and Moon to defend them against the dragon.”
However, some ancient people believed the eclipse was caused by an altogether different kind of intimate meeting. Cue the Barry White music, and let me count all the ways Almanac.com lists the beliefs that the eclipse is a romantic encounter:
“To the Australian Aborigines, the Sun was seen as a woman who carries a torch. The Moon, by contrast, was regarded as male. Because of the association of the lunar cycle with the female menstrual cycle, the Moon was linked with fertility. A solar eclipse was interpreted as the Moon-man uniting with the Sun-woman.
In German mythology, the hot female Sun and cold male Moon were married. The Sun ruled the day, and the sleepy Moon ruled the night. Seeking companionship, the Moon was drawn to his bride, and they came together—thus, a solar eclipse.
Some Native Americans drew on a similar concept: that a solar eclipse was a visit of companions.
West Africans of Benin switch the gender roles of the Sun and Moon and suggest that the orbs are very busy, but when they do get together, they turn off the light for privacy.
In Tahitian myth, the orbs are lovers who join up —providing an eclipse—but get lost in the moment and create stars to light their return to normalcy.”
Isn’t it comforting to know that through centuries of education and scientific reasoning, we are able to dispel all of those crazy misconceptions about a solar eclipse? Well, not so fast. NASA.gov offers an entire page of myths that many still believe today. Here’s a couple of them:
MYTH: If you are pregnant, you should not watch an eclipse because it can harm your baby.
This is related to the previous false idea that harmful radiations are emitted during a total solar eclipse. Although the electromagnetic radiation from the corona, seen as light, is perfectly safe, there is another form of radiation that travels to Earth from the sun. Deep in the solar interior, where nuclear fusion takes place to light the sun, particles called neutrinos are born and zip unimpeded out of the sun and into space. They also pass through the solid body of the moon during the eclipse and a second or so later reach Earth and pass through it too! Every second, your body is pelted by trillions of these neutrinos, no matter if the sun is above or below the horizon. The only consequence is that every few minutes, a few atoms in your body are transmuted into a different isotope by absorbing a neutrino. This is an entirely harmless effect and would not harm you or, if you are pregnant, the developing fetus.
MYTH: Eclipses will poison any food that is prepared during the event.
Related to the false idea of harmful solar rays is that during a total solar eclipse, some kind of radiation is produced that will harm your food. If that were the case, the same radiation would harm the food in your pantry or crops in the field. The basic idea is that total solar eclipses are terrifying, and their ghostly green coronae look frightening, so it is natural to want to make up fearful stories about them and look for coincidences among events around you. If someone is accidentally food-poisoned with potato salad during an eclipse, some might argue that the event was related to the eclipse itself, even though hundreds of other people at the same location were not at all affected.
MYTH: Eclipses are harbingers of something very bad about to happen.
A classic case of what psychologists call Confirmation Bias is that we tend to remember all the occasions when two things happened together but forget all of the other times when they did not. This gives us a biased view of causes and effects that we remember easily because the human brain is predisposed to looking for and remembering patterns that can be used as survival rules of thumb. Total solar eclipses are not often recorded in the historical record, but they do tend to be recorded when they coincide with other historical events. For example, in 763 B.C., early Assyrian records mention an eclipse in the same passage as an insurrection in the city of Ashur, now known as Qal’at Sherqat in Iraq, suggesting that the ancient people linked the two in their minds. Or when King Henry I of England, the son of William the Conqueror, died in A.D. 1133, the event coincided with a total solar eclipse. With a little work you can also find numerous cases when something good happened!”
But just in case, perhaps we all need to adhere to a Mexican superstition during the eclipse: calzones rojos, which means “red underwear.” Yes, wearing red underwear during an eclipse is supposed to keep you safe. This ritual dates back to Aztec times, and we know what happened to the Aztecs—maybe they were destroyed because they ran out of red underwear.
I mean, Superman has survived, right?!?!?!
Happy Friday!!!