Myths, folklore surround solar eclipses
Millions across US will witness event April 8
Blame this on our early ancestors. “The human brain is predisposed to looking for, and remembering, patterns that can be used as survival rules-ofthumb,” NASA explained.
However, “there is no physical relationship between a total solar eclipse and your health,” NASA said. “Among a random sample of people, you may find such correlations from time to time but they are outnumbered by all the other occasions during which your health was excellent.”
Don’t believe it? Check back Oct. 8. Let’s dive in to folklore now.
Exploiting fears
nervous about eclipses, with court astrologers interpreting them to mean that the monarch’s power was in danger. In ancient Babylon, the court hired “stand-in” kings to sit on the throne during an eclipse, so any harm would come to them instead of the real king, according to the Farmers’ Almanac.
Christopher Columbus exploited our tendency to fear eclipses. On his last voyage to the Americas, he was stranded with his crew on Jamaica with a badly damaged ship. Indigenous people got tired of feeding the crew – who had robbed and murdered some of the Arawaks, according to Space.com.
On the night of Feb. 29, 1504, Columbus – who had access to an almanac detailing the coming eclipse – told the natives God was angry with them for withholding food and was going to make the moon disappear.
During the eclipse, the natives “begged Columbus to ask God to forgive them and bring back the moon.” An hour later, the eclipse ended, and “Columbus told the natives that God had forgiven them,” according to accounts from KidsEclipse and Space.com.