Scientists today have a good understanding when it comes to solar eclipses. Towns in the path of totality have been preparing for months and even years for the events of April 8 with many festivals organized, campgrounds created and even mass wedding ceremonies planned. We are now aware of when eclipses are coming and where they can be seen, and they become events to look forward to.
Humans living thousands of years ago were not so lucky. People have depended upon the consistency of patterns of the sun and the moon to help mark the passage of time and followed the seasons for agriculture and other purposes.
Can you imagine working the fields one day when the sun starts to slowly disappear in the middle of the afternoon, without warning, becoming dark outside? In the days when life was harder and information was less readily available, these events caused unease at the least and were, simply put, freaky.
GLOBAL SOLAR ECLIPSE BELIEFS
According to the Farmers' Almanac, the Pomo, an indigenous group of people from the northwest U.S., believed that a solar eclipse is the result of a fight between a great bear and the sun. It ended when the bear took a huge bite out of the sun, causing the darkness of an eclipse.
A similar thought ran through ancient Korea, though instead it was believed that dogs were trying to steal the sun or the moon and bit it, causing the appearance of the eclipse. Vikings also shared this idea, according to the Farmers' Almanac. They believed a hungry wolf named Sköll, which means treachery or mockery, raced across the sky, hunting and eating the sun.
In ancient times, rulers nervously conferred with astrologers, who interpreted eclipses as bad omens. Kings and emperors from Babylon have been said to have feared that their power was in danger and took up the practice of placing imitation, "stand-in" rulers to sit on the throne during an eclipse so any harm would come to these impersonators instead of the real king.
Even in cultures in ancient Greece and Rome, which are known for their advances in math and science and were even able to predict eclipses to a point, there were bad feelings around eclipses. They were considered "bad omens, portents of evil and astrological events to be feared," according to the Farmers' Almanac.
According to Hindu tradition, it was believed that a demon named Rahu stole an elixir of immortality. Before he could finish it, he was beheaded. His head, forever alive, floats around and occasionally devours the sun. Nowadays, people in India make noise by banging pots and pans and setting off fireworks during a solar eclipse to scare Rahu away and make him cough up the sun, returning it to the sky.