These are some of the many legends concerning Aurora, which still exist in various parts of the world:
- Ancient peoples of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland believe that the Aurora is the fire of torches lighting the way to heaven for the spirits of the dead.

Eos, Goddess of the dawn, was known as Aurora and was the sister of Helios, the Sun. Every morning she would rise from her bed and drive Helios into the sky. Four of her sons are the four winds (north, south, east, and west). According to one myth, her tears cause the dew as she flies across the sky weeping for one of her sons, who was killed by Achilles during the Trojan war. Among the handsome young men whom she carried off as lovers were Orion and Tithonus. Eos asked Zeus to give Tithonus immortality but forgot to include ?everlasting youth? with her request.



She is Eos Goddess of the dawn, the daughter of the Hyperion and Theia and the sister of Helios (sun) and Selene (moon). She was the mother of the four winds: Boreas, Eurus, Zephyrus, and Notus; and also of Heosphorus and the Stars. She was depicted as a goddess whose rosy fingers opened the gates of heaven to the chariot of the Sun. Her legend consists almost entirely of her intrigues. She first slept with Ares; this earned her the wrath of Aphrodite who punished her by changing her into a nymph.



Cultural Inuit views on a person's destination after life vary widely from Alaska to Greenland. Inuit parents of the Mackenzie region must always remember that the soul of the departed may enter the body of a newborn child where it will remain until death--unless that child be punished too often, in which case the spirit will leave. In other regions, the departed spirit goes to various levels of afterlife, the hereafter depending upon behavior in life and the manner of death.

A person who dies of sickness or other routine cause and who has not been a good person in life generally will end up in a bad place. That place may be beneath the sea or perhaps down in the bowels of the earth. The bad place is not necessarily a site for punishment, the views differ from Alaska to Greenland, but it may be very dark there, much snow and ice cover the land, and it is always stormy.

In general, it is believed that there is no assurance that life in the final land will be better or worse than here on earth. There can be a sort of intermediate form of the hereafter which may be rather monotonous to live in but which will be free of cold and hardship.

The better places to go are one of the levels of heaven, the highest of which is in the aurora borealis. This is a happy place where there is no snow or storm. It is always bright, and there are many easily caught animals. A common belief is that the aurora is caused by the spirits playing ball. They are playing football with a walrus head, and the contra-streaming movements of the lights across the sky are the evidence of struggles among the spirits.

The person who goes to the highest heaven in the aurora is the man who dies in the hunt, the person who is murdered or who has committed the noble act of suicide or the woman who has died in childbirth. It helps if one has always been generous to the poor and starving.

Among some Greenlander Inuits, the aurora is thought to be caused by the spirit of stillborn or murdered children playing ball with their afterbirths. The Copper Inuit view the aurora as the manifestations of the spirits that bring fine weather. In Alaska it is known that the aurora will come closer if one whistles at it. It also has been said that the aurora will cut your head off if you whistle at it. Prior to 1900 it was written that the Inuit of Point Barrow were afraid of the northern lights and carried knives in self-protection. Further protection could be gained by throwing dog excrement or urine at the aurora. Others believe that one must be careful not to offend the auroras because these ghostly spirits somehow control the supply of game and weather.


*The Algonquin think the lights are their ancestors dancing around a fire.

*The Sami people believed that a person should be careful and quiet when in the presence of the northern lights (called guovssahasat in Northern Sami). To mock the northern lights or singing about them was considered dangerous and could be reason for the lights to come down on a person and kill him/her.

*Scandinavian source calls them”the fires that surround the North and South edges of the world.”

Aurora Borealis timelapse HD - Tromsø 2010 from Tor Even Mathisen on Vimeo.

Source : T. Neil Davis, wikipedia, nasa