No Sun or Moon

[littlemanpoet]

In the beginning of Middle Earth there is no sun or moon, and it is the Two Trees that give light to the world - or at least to Valinor.

My question: Where did Tolkien get this idea from? I have not read many of the HoME series: does it say anywhere in the many publications of the histories of Middle Earth?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Trees specifically, LMP? My knowledge of mythology doesn't stretch much further than Norway, but they had light before the Sun too -- it came from the original fire in the world.

Reminds me of the Ricky Gervais joke, about God creating the universe in the dark.

[littlemanpoet]

Well, trees are what Tolkien puts in there.

What strikes me is that there are ancient mythologies across the world that record a time before the sun was in the sky. I suppose Tolkien must have known about these?

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I do not know anything about the mythological roots of the the Trees, and I can't remember anything ever being said about them in the HoMEs/Letters I've read so far, but I do dimly recall that Tolkien was trying to portray the Sun as a flawed source of light (cf. Ecclesiastes's 'life under the sun').

[littlemanpoet]

Fascinating, Nilp. Every little tidbit of information I pick up on this adds up to some incredible stuff. There is an interdisciplinary school of thought that is researching a new paradigm about the history of our solar system, such that the earth was not always as near the sun as it is now but had other sources of light to sustain life. In it, "life under the sun" is understood as a "second best" condition after cataclysms that ruined the original situation.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

What strikes me is that there are ancient mythologies across the world that record a time before the sun was in the sky. I suppose Tolkien must have known about these?

Like in Genesis? You (and Tolkien) may have come across this...

Originally Posted by Moses in Genesis 1:3-5

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Originally Posted by Moses in Genesis1:14-19

And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

But there's nothing on trees.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

As one learning Hebrew I feel I HAVE TO point out a slight mistake...

Originally Posted by alatar

Moses in Genesis 1:3-5
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day..

Actually, the Hebrew reads "Yom Ekhad", "Day One". The rest of them are labeled 'second', 'third', 'fourth' and so on. 'One' is absolute, 'first' is comparative. <--- closests to geeky glasses...

But, yes, you are right, light came before the sun even in Genesis. Though it is not unique even amongst mesopotamian creation narratives. The root word, in Hebrew, is “אור” (Or) which means; to ‘become light’, ‘shine’, ‘be enlightened’, ‘kindle’ and ‘light’. The word is also used to mean; ‘glorious’.
The obvious question is ‘where is the light coming from?’ because we, as yet, do not have the sun. In Jewish mysticism, a lot is said about this light. Some say it is ‘the light of ultimate awareness’. It is given all sorts of attributes, such as being a thousand times brighter than the sun and allowing someone to see across time. What I find most interesting (and this is why I think it is relevant), is that the definition 'to enlighten' is expounded upon in a few writings. That this light is not like visible light, but rather, the light of knowledge. Again, I do not think this idea is restricted to Jewish Mysticism. The idea is that, before the sun, there was a time of 'enlightenment' where knowledge was abounding.

I think this ties in with the idea that there is some sort of 'Golden Age'. The time of the lamps is one that brings the trees that are like living mountains. They never appear again. The time of the Two Trees brings forth many things of beauty, not least, The Silmarills, which are never equaled. This narrative device of a Golden Age is prominent in a lot of Tolkien's work. The Sun and Moon ages are 'normal', whereas the Lamps and the Trees represent a time immemorial, where wisdom was fresh and things were different.

This idea of time before the sun is an interesting one.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

As one learning Hebrew I feel I HAVE TO point out a slight mistake...

Actually, the Hebrew reads "Yom Ekhad", "Day One". The rest of them are labeled 'second', 'third', 'fourth' and so on. 'One' is absolute, 'first' is comparative. <--- closests to geeky glasses...

You will want to let those who collated the NIV, KJV and NKJV. The NASV states it as "one day" and "a fourth day."

And your thoughts regarding 'enlightenment are interesting. Never saw that light before.

This idea of time before the sun is an interesting one.

It comes up frequently when discussing Genesis between those that read it as a literal seven day creation and those that see it as more poetic/allegoric.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by alatar

You will want to let those who collated the NIV, KJV and NKJV. The NASV states it as "one day" and "a fourth day."

I can see why they render it 'first', editors want consistency. It also makes it look more poetic (which it is, the Hebrew is filled with alliteration, puns and rhyme). But enough of this nerd fest.

I read somewhere once that "Poetry is more interested with truth than history".

Anyway...

Tolkien's vision of an age without the sun fills me with intrigue. I really like the idea. Middle Earth was, presumably, quite cold, at the time, though.
The Lamps raise some interesting topics, though. They are raised on mountains, yet they are fashioned by Aule. So, they are like an ultimate 'work of hands', as it were. How quickly are they thrown down? Pretty quickly. The Trees, a more 'natural' source of light, last a little longer and require Melkor to use a bit more of his cunning. The Sun is what confounds him at the last. Perhaps this is Tolkien's love of nature winning over manufacture coming through. I like to think so.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Going through the Christian beliefs, there was no sun before it was created in Genesis(duh), so the light that was there had to come from somewhere else. The Bible (to my knowledge) doesn't have any reference to what light was before the sun, but Tolkien could've gotten this particular idea from another source like was mentioned before or he could have gotten an idea from nowhere and that could have sparked his imagination to go somewhere else with it. But wherever he got the idea for the two trees, Tolkien probably had to change it somewhat...

[alatar]

This link has a huge list of creation myths from all over the globe. It reminded me that in Greek mythology, the sun (Apollo) and the moon (Artemis) are not born until well after Gaia's been though some ages. Marduk fought Tiamat before making the sun and moon from its corpse. Coyolxauhqui, moon goddess, was created/born before the sun-god Quetzalcoatl.

It would seem that light before the sun and moon is somewhat common, but from trees?

*Note that the moon is not a light source but just a big reflector.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by alatar

Like in Genesis? You (and Tolkien) may have come across this... ..... But there's nothing on trees.

On the contrary: there are two trees: one a tree of life, one a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

On the contrary: there are two trees: one a tree of life, one a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Excellent! Right under my nose and I didn't even see it. And those trees were illuminating too - at least in some sense.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Hookbill

But, yes, you are right, light came before the sun even in Genesis.

Not only in Genesis. It's in many myths around the world, as Alatar relates. Mesopotamian, Mesoamerican, Nordic, Oriental, Greek, Egyptian, etc.

Originally Posted by Hookbill

The obvious question is ‘where is the light coming from?

Indeed. Tolkien's answer was "the Two Trees". Genesis is not the only source for the tree archetype though. The Norse have Yggdrasil. There may be other myths that feature something like it, maybe not a tree..

What's fascinating is that from many myths around the world, the light before the sun comes from what is called, depending upon the ancient culture, "the great sun", "the unmoved mover", "the polar sun", and so forth. The "great sun" is always at the north pole, and it is always associated with the planet Saturn. Which begs the question, "were they all equally nuts, or was earth's sky different within human memory than it is now?"

Obviously, Tolkien didn't pick up on this Saturnian theme. On the contrary, he located his evil persona, Morgoth, in the frigid North instead.

Originally Posted by Hookbill

I think this ties in with the idea that there is some sort of 'Golden Age'

This again is common to all ancient myths, when the earth produced abundantly, there was no sun, and there was no extreme of hot and cold. All of these cultures' myths share so many inexplicable traits like this, yet they knew nothing of each other. It suggests, strongly, that something was going on that we have forgotten about, or perhaps ignore, calling it "superstition" while not really understanding it.

Tolkien obviously knew a lot about different myths, especially the Norse, Finnish, and Greek, and perhaps Celtic. It comes as no surprise that he incorporated much of the ideas and archetypes from them into Middle Earth.

What I do find intriguing is that in his later years he wanted to try to "correct" his early stories to fit the current structure of the solar system. I think this was a mistake because it is to presume that the solar system always was as it is now. Fact is, it's littered with shrapnel and disarray as if it has been a war zone of some cosmic kind: asteroid belt, comets, various moons and planets with striations crisscrossing them; planets rotating oddly, unstable atmospheres - all of which should not exist in a solar system unchanged for billions of years.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

What I do find intriguing is that in his later years he wanted to try to "correct" his early stories to fit the current structure of the solar system. I think this was a mistake because it is to presume that the solar system always was as it is now. Fact is, it's littered with shrapnel and disarray as if it has been a war zone of some cosmic kind: asteroid belt, comets, various moons and planets with striations crisscrossing them; planets rotating oddly, unstable atmospheres - all of which should not exist in a solar system unchanged for billions of years.

I agree that Tolkien's later attempt to "correct" his Legendarium's cosmology was a mistake, but I disagree about why.

Tolkien's concern that the story of the Trees and the flat earth was unbelievable or unrealistic (especially in light of modern science) seems to me to miss a fundamental point - his whole Legendarium was necessarily unrealistic. Of course, nowadays no educated person would believe that the sun and moon were actually the last fruit and flower of two ancient trees; similarly, no educated person would believe that there was once a magical Ring that turned its wearer invisible. Nor that Venus is in fact not a world like ours but rather a radiant gem worn on the brow of a mariner on a ship that can fly.

To attempt to make the Legendarium scientifically accurate would have been to discard the whole thing and invent an entirely new story. These things are not realistic; they cannot be made realistic save by deleting them; and they are not supposed to be realistic for these are works of fantasy. I, for one, find the late 'Myths Transformed' mythology no more believable than the earlier one, and significantly less beautiful.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Aiwendil, you bring up an interesting point there - perhaps Tolkien's mythology of decreasing beauty and power applies to himself as well?! His later revisions did not equal the power and imagination of his first sub-creative works.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Trees specifically, LMP? My knowledge of mythology doesn't stretch much further than Norway, but they had light before the Sun too -- it came from the original fire in the world.

The flame imperiahable?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Interesting thought, Eönwë. The flame imperishable was more central, though, as opposed to the fire and ice of Norse mythology. But there's another thread for that, started by Rune, which is very interesting.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I agree that Tolkien's later attempt to "correct" his Legendarium's cosmology was a mistake, but I disagree about why.... - his whole Legendarium was necessarily unrealistic. Of course, nowadays no educated person would believe that the sun and moon were actually the last fruit and flower of two ancient trees; similarly, no educated person would believe that there was once a magical Ring that turned its wearer invisible. Nor that Venus is in fact not a world like ours but rather a radiant gem worn on the brow of a mariner on a ship that can fly.

Of course. These are beautiful symbols meant to convey something real.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

To attempt to make the Legendarium scientifically accurate would have been to discard the whole thing and invent an entirely new story.

I would distinguish between a few points here. To discard the whole thing would be tragic. To invent an entirely new story would be wonderful. In Tolkien's case, I think this would not have mattered so much considering that he kept many of his previous drafts. As to making the Legendarium scientifically accurate, this I think was a waste of time because we can't be sure to what degree current science is, in fact, an accurate representation of what is real. For example, Black Holes and neutron stars have never been proven to exist. But more significantly a 'uniformitarian' paradigm for the history of the solar system is falling apart like a house of cards the more we explore it. Yet the current scientific community writes as if they are all givens.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

These things are not realistic...

This is in my opinion an unfortunate word choice. If, by realistic, you mean "not accurate according to current scientific and cultural understanding", I can agree. If, however, you mean "not real", then I cannot agree on the grounds that it cannot be proven that material phenomena understood by modern humans is all that is real.

But all this deviates from the main thread I am most interested in pursuing, which is: what is Tolkien's basis for a pre-sun and moon Golden Age?

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Interesting thought, Eönwë. The flame imperishable was more central, though, as opposed to the fire and ice of Norse mythology.

Remind you of anyone in the sil?

Originally Posted by Ainulindale

[He] is clad in ice and crownd with smoke and fire; the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold

Or perhaps the lamps in BoLT (No! I just packed this book.)

edit: sorry, Elempi, I wrote this before you said that, and just forgot to press the post button.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by alatar

This link has a huge list of creation myths from all over the globe.

Did you notice this?

Originally Posted by wikipedia, Alatar's link, on the Ainu people

When the animals who lived up in the heavens saw how beautiful the world was, they begged Kamui to let them go and live on it, and he did. But Kamui also made many other creatures especially for the world. The first people, the Ainu, had bodies of earth, hair of chickweed, and spines made from sticks of willow. Kamui sent Aioina, the divine man, down from heaven to teach the Ainu how to hunt and to cook.

Sounds familiar....hmm....

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Which begs the question, "were they all equally nuts, or was earth's sky different within human memory than it is now?"

Not nuts, and nor was the sky different. We looked at what we 'knew' and extrapolated that into 'how the heavens worked.' You looked up at your hut roof, and if you could hang (or even just imagine hanging) a light up there, well then a god, who was pretty much like you but just bigger, older, wiser and with greater powers, hung its lights in its hut called Earth.

This again is common to all ancient myths, when the earth produced abundantly, there was no sun, and there was no extreme of hot and cold. All of these cultures' myths share so many inexplicable traits like this, yet they knew nothing of each other. It suggests, strongly, that something was going on that we have forgotten about, or perhaps ignore, calling it "superstition" while not really understanding it.

I'm a little intrigued regarding your intended meaning. And not all myths share 'many' features; think that we just interpret them that way. Surely there'd be some overlap - all cultures lived under the sun and moon, but how they thought of these (objects, gods, vessels) differed. And I think that it's easier to talk about the olden days being Golden as many people remember the good times and forget/bottle up the bad. Think of your parents lives - everything was wonderful when they were growing up, not the 'going to the dogs' world we live in today. I'm currently gathering items to later tell my grandchildren so that they can have the same experience - Grandpap alatar lived in the golden days when you could still buy gasoline.

Anyway, what all of these stories are is science. This thought helps me when thinking of ancient writings. Those people way back when did their best to describe what they saw and how it may have worked. They might of been completely wrong, but that happens in science today as well.

While I'm warming up my rant...what really annoys me is when persons want to pick and chose the science they want to believe (which is nuts in itself - believing in the theory of gravity or not does not change the outcome of jumping from a roof). If you think that science today is wrong and the science of 2000-4000 years ago is perfect, well, that's fine with me. Just give up your cell phone and germ theory.

Sorry.

What I do find intriguing is that in his later years he wanted to try to "correct" his early stories to fit the current structure of the solar system. I think this was a mistake because it is to presume that the solar system always was as it is now. Fact is, it's littered with shrapnel and disarray as if it has been a war zone of some cosmic kind: asteroid belt, comets, various moons and planets with striations crisscrossing them; planets rotating oddly, unstable atmospheres - all of which should not exist in a solar system unchanged for billions of years.

That's sad. To me it's fine as it is; flat then round as we see that a change is made. It even makes for more mythology...like the Straight Road.

For example, Black Holes and neutron stars have never been proven to exist. But more significantly a 'uniformitarian' paradigm for the history of the solar system is falling apart like a house of cards the more we explore it. Yet the current scientific community writes as if they are all givens.

You can find some definitive information regarding black holes at this site. And this link shows how wrong science can be as they thought this star was going to become a black hole, but it became a neutron star instead. No points for that one.

Note that these observations validate the math predicting such things. Think that Einstein's work showed that these things should exist. Not sure what your last sentence means.

Anyway, Darwin talked about a tree of life (common descent) but I don't think that this tree provided any visible light, as did Tolkien's trees did at the beginning.

[Lush]

Hey now. I'm both with lmp and alatar on this one. Anyone ever heard about Ken Wilber's ideas? I don't necessarily buy into his thinking as much as I believe that it has opened up a new door: the idea that both science and religion hold the key to understanding reality from a single perspective. Wilber believes that science as it is today is too narrow, though he also claims that narrow science is more developed than narrow religion.

I know that the moon and the sun are not magical fruits, but another part of me thinks that there is a reason why someone would believe that, and that reason goes well beyond "teh primitive peoples r primitive" meme. I think there is a lot to the universe that the human eye does not see, but that another part of us does. I think Tolkien taps into that part in a mean way.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by alatar

what really annoys me is when persons want to pick and chose the science they want to believe

Seconded,

I guess that's what makes a religious fundamentionalist: people not being able to acknowledge, to themselves or others, that they choose some parts of science or holy books to believe in and other parts to ignore.

Reminds me of the creationist-nuts in the US who've sexed up the old genesis-story trying to make it appear like serious science. I used to know a guy who ranted on about evolution being impossible due to the law of entropy, among other ludicrous pieces of "evidence". He was also convinced the moonlanding never happened, and that no airplanes hit the twin towers at 9/11.

I've got the impression that Tolkien wanted to revise his mythology to make it more plausable as a real but ancient part of our history. Guess he figured his modern readers would find the idea of a flat earth and life without the sun quite primitive and far fetched. He himself certainly wasn't happy about it.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by alatar

Not nuts, and nor was the sky different. We looked at what we 'knew' and extrapolated that into 'how the heavens worked.' You looked up at your hut roof, and if you could hang (or even just imagine hanging) a light up there, well then a god, who was pretty much like you but just bigger, older, wiser and with greater powers, hung its lights in its hut called Earth.

How do you know that this is how myths came to be? You see, farflung cultures recorded a Golden Age followed by cataclysms that destroyed the Golden Age. They created rites (sometimes quite gruesome) that recapitulated both Golden Age and the destroying cataclysms so that (1) they would not forget them (2) they might appease the gods and "head off a repetition of the cataclysms" (which by the way always seems to have to do with comets). They intended to remember something that had been lost. If only one culture had done this, we could say that a regional conflagration of some sort occurred. That the same kind of cataclysm is described in farflung cultures, does not merely suggest, but leads a reasonable mind to ask what can be understood from the strange points of agreement from culture to culture.

Originally Posted by alatar

I'm a little intrigued regarding your intended meaning. And not all myths share 'many' features; think that we just interpret them that way.

There is a hermeneutic of comparing myths. One must take the culture's mode of expression as a given, and allow it to say what it says, suspending judgement until comprehension is as complete as it can become. The results, across many different mythologies, are striking in their similarity.

Before we get any further, let me just clarify to the moderators that this bears on Tolkien's legendarium to a great degree in that he picked up on many of these themes, but not all.

Points of similarity:

• a sun god who is the benevolent universal ruler par excellence, who resided at the north pole, and is associated with the planet Saturn
• an anatomically impossible dragon, sometimes bearded, or hairy, flying across the sky, wreaking destruction upon earth
• a comet which is the heart of the dying sun god, which bursts forth into the heavens, and is associated with the planet Venus

These are not the only similarities from culture to culture. Tolkien does not record any comets, but does record the planet Venus, as not having always been in the sky. The universal ruler is in middle earth the evil Morgoth, residing in the northern Angband. What is intruguing to me is that Tolkien turns the "par excellence" of the benevolent deity on its head. Obviously, Tolkien has a number of dragons.

Originally Posted by alatar

Those people way back when did their best to describe what they saw and how it may have worked.

That is a fundamental part of what I'm trying to get across.

Originally Posted by alatar

They might of been completely wrong, but that happens in science today as well.

I'd like to qualify this in this way: they might have been completely wrong that they were gods, but suppose that what they were trying to describe really did occur. There is too much agreement from culture to culture to ignore that something must have happened (except that it is being ignored by and large).

Originally Posted by alatar

While I'm warming up my rant...what really annoys me is when persons want to pick and chose the science they want to believe (which is nuts in itself - believing in the theory of gravity or not does not change the outcome of jumping from a roof). If you think that science today is wrong and the science of 2000-4000 years ago is perfect, well, that's fine with me. Just give up your cell phone and germ theory.

You mis-apprehend what I'm saying. The reason I have a problem with much of modern science is that when confronted with yet more evidence that the paradigm is wrong, our scientists do not question the paradigm; instead they create yet another ad hoc theory that cannot be tested in any lab.

Regarding black holes, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, a thing cannot exist with an infinite degree of any one aspect of reality, such as gravity. Black holes have, according to theory, infinite gravitational force. So either one or the other is incorrect; yet, modern science is not denying Einstein's theory, nor is it admitting that black holes cannot exist. With good science, either one or the other must be put to rest.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

That the same kind of cataclysm is described in farflung cultures, does not merely suggest, but leads a reasonable mind to ask what can be understood from the strange points of agreement from culture to culture.

Indeed - and I would say that what can be understood from this are certain facts about the human mind and human society. This explanation is quite viable and does not contradict the preponderance of scientific evidence; whereas an explanation such as "the myths are actually true" does.

a sun god who is the benevolent universal ruler par excellence, who resided at the north pole, and is associated with the planet Saturn
an anatomically impossible dragon, sometimes bearded, or hairy, flying across the sky, wreaking destruction upon earth
a comet which is the heart of the dying sun god, which bursts forth into the heavens, and is associated with the planet Venus

Are you really claiming that these are three points of similarity across all (or most) natural mythologies? I'd have to disagree. Number 1 is true of Egyptian mythology, for example, but certainly not of Greek nor Aztec nor Indian nor even really of Germanic (Odin/Woden is a sky god but not specifically a sun god). I will concede that number 2 is fairly universal - most myths have at least some kind of monster, though not necessarily a flying one. As for number 3 - though I don't doubt that you know of some mythos with this element, I confess I can think of none in which a comet is the heart of the dying sun god.

You mis-apprehend what I'm saying. The reason I have a problem with much of modern science is that when confronted with yet more evidence that the paradigm is wrong, our scientists do not question the paradigm; instead they create yet another ad hoc theory that cannot be tested in any lab.

Though I am admittedly biased, being a scientist myself, I cannot help but think that you have mis-apprehended the nature of the scientific method. When new evidence is presented that contradicts current theories, those theories are rejected in favour of new theories with which the evidence does agree. Sometimes multiple such theories are proposed and must compete with each other. The only criterion for success is that the theory agrees with the evidence. Usually, the new theories that are proposed are modelled very closely on the old, rejected theory - which makes sense if the rejected theory was reasonably succesful. Sometimes, though, when necessary, the whole conceptual framework is rejected and replaced with a new one. General relativity is a perfect example. When the evidence finally built up that Newtonian mechanics was not correct, and that no easy modifications could bring it into line with the data, its whole paradigm of absolute space and forces was rejected.

Regarding black holes, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, a thing cannot exist with an infinite degree of any one aspect of reality, such as gravity. Black holes have, according to theory, infinite gravitational force. So either one or the other is incorrect; yet, modern science is not denying Einstein's theory, nor is it admitting that black holes cannot exist. With good science, either one or the other must be put to rest.

This is actually a fairly common misconception. As a matter of fact, general relativity has been put to rest in a manner of speaking. We know now that it is not a valid theory for describing phenomena like black holes, where the strength of gravity becomes as powerful as the other forces. The only trouble is we don't yet have a new theory that adequately describes both gravity (which GR does all right at in most cases) and the other forces (which are, on their own, fairly well described by quantum field theories).

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Having long been a student of mythology, I believe that one should consider the definition of "myth." One I personally prefer is stated in the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend:

Myth: A story, presented as having actually occurred in a previous age, explaining the cosmological and supernatural traditions of a people, their gods, heroes, cultural traits, religious beliefs, etc. The purpose of myth is to explain, and, as Sir G.L. Gomme said, myths explain matters in "the science of a pre-scientific age." Thus myths tell of the creation of man, of animals, of landmarks; they tell why a certain animal has its characteristics (e.g. why the bat is blind or flies only at night), why or how certain natural phenomena came to be (e.g.why the rainbow appears or how the constellation Orion got into the sky), how and why rituals and ceremonies began and why they continue. Not all origin stories are myths, however; the myth must have a religious background in that its principal actor or actors are deities; the stories are thus systematized at least to the extent that they are related to a corpus of other stories in which the given god is the member of a pantheon. Where such interrelation does not occur, and where the gods or demigods do not appear, such stories are properly classified as folktale.

As Tolkien said that his tales were an attempt to create a mythology for England, I feel he succeeded quite well, and that any later attempt to try to make those tales more scientifically accurate was a mistake. The beauty of myth does not lie in its scientific precision, but rather in how it shows the ingenuity of the human mind, striving to understand the world in which it lives, as best it is able. In my humble opinion, of course.

That said, trees play major parts in many myths about the early world (the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge, Yggdrasil, etc.) and there certainly are quite a few myths about the bringing of light and/or fire from the gods to man (Prometheus comes screaming to mind ). I find the Two Trees a clever and elegant blend of such myths. I don't believe Tolkien was the first to invent a tree of light (I'd have to dig up some of my more esoteric mythology texts to check it out, but I seem to recall such tales in some Eastern mythologies), but he may have been the first to use it as a basis for a myth to explain the reality of the sun and moon.

Just my two cents', as ever.

[Lush]

lmp - I strongly suggest that you check out Ken Wilber. You don't have to be into Buddhism to get good stuff out of him. Who knows? You might really like him.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

How do you know that this is how myths came to be?

I don't; that was one possible explanation. Another is that, as we all came from Africa, that maybe sometime earlier in time some event did happen that was remembered by the various tribes that eventually populated the world. So in that, maybe we're in agreement.

You see, farflung cultures recorded a Golden Age followed by cataclysms that destroyed the Golden Age. They created rites (sometimes quite gruesome) that recapitulated both Golden Age and the destroying cataclysms so that (1) they would not forget them (2) they might appease the gods and "head off a repetition of the cataclysms" (which by the way always seems to have to do with comets). They intended to remember something that had been lost. If only one culture had done this, we could say that a regional conflagration of some sort occurred. That the same kind of cataclysm is described in farflung cultures, does not merely suggest, but leads a reasonable mind to ask what can be understood from the strange points of agreement from culture to culture.

Again, I think that we agree. Where we may differ is in the event itself. Maybe we should define "Golden Age" that we may know it when we see it. As wonderful as the past may have been, I'm not willing to give up my current life and culture in exchange, as I don't see anything worth the trade. I have indoor plumbing, the ability to travel faster than sound, heat/cooling when I want it and that grail of grails, Google, that knows everything.

There is a hermeneutic of comparing myths. One must take the culture's mode of expression as a given, and allow it to say what it says, suspending judgement until comprehension is as complete as it can become. The results, across many different mythologies, are striking in their similarity.

Again, I would assume that there would be similarities. We're all the same species, came from one place via various migrations, have the same physiology and live in similar environments (i.e. under the sun, need water and food, see the moon, etc). But to say "striking?" I'm not willing to concede that without evidence.

Here's a link to Encyclopedia Mythica that might be helpful.

Before we get any further, let me just clarify to the moderators that this bears on Tolkien's legendarium to a great degree in that he picked up on many of these themes, but not all.

Thanks; I see myself getting censored as I'm not sure I can say what I want and keep on-topic.

Points of similarity:

• a sun god who is the benevolent universal ruler par excellence, who resided at the north pole, and is associated with the planet Saturn
• an anatomically impossible dragon, sometimes bearded, or hairy, flying across the sky, wreaking destruction upon earth
• a comet which is the heart of the dying sun god, which bursts forth into the heavens, and is associated with the planet Venus

Not sure that Scientology has any of those.

These are not the only similarities from culture to culture. Tolkien does not record any comets, but does record the planet Venus, as not having always been in the sky. The universal ruler is in middle earth the evil Morgoth, residing in the northern Angband. What is intruguing to me is that Tolkien turns the "par excellence" of the benevolent deity on its head. Obviously, Tolkien has a number of dragons.

Regarding comets and what people believed about them, I recommend the documentation by Andrew White in Chapter 4 of The War of Science with Theology published in 1896.

You mis-apprehend what I'm saying. The reason I have a problem with much of modern science is that when confronted with yet more evidence that the paradigm is wrong, our scientists do not question the paradigm; instead they create yet another ad hoc theory that cannot be tested in any lab.

I thank Aiwendil for answering this. I would add that maybe the reason for friction between our two ways of seeing things it that from one side, everything that can ever be known already has been recorded, and from the other, we haven't even started knowing anything. I make no assumptions, and state this as tactfully as I can, but do you see it as having to fit observations to what you already 'know?' Science, as stated, sometimes has to throw everything out and start down a new path. It's not comfortable, yet what we want to 'be' and what 'is' are two different things, and wishing earnestly that the world conformed to how we want it to be changes how it works not one wit.

Not that I would want to know that the reason I fell in love with my wife and had four children which I adore is all due to the the Grand Equation of Everything. Even it that existed, it would make my experiences no less enjoyable and real.

Think of what science would be doing to poor Pluto, the Roman god of the dead. I understand that he wasn't named after the planet (or planetoid). In their mythology, he was a pretty important god, managing the dead and all, and with his kidnapping of Proserpina, caused winter. And he was also associated with wealth.

Science would be promoting and demoting him yearly as they decided where his place was. That, to me, is why it was mistaken of Tolkien to rewrite his works to be more scientifically correct. Science can change; a beautiful story with meaning does not have to to be great.

Regarding black holes, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, a thing cannot exist with an infinite degree of any one aspect of reality, such as gravity. Black holes have, according to theory, infinite gravitational force. So either one or the other is incorrect; yet, modern science is not denying Einstein's theory, nor is it admitting that black holes cannot exist. With good science, either one or the other must be put to rest.

Maybe I was in error saying that General Relativity said thus; any errors are surely mine. But, in regards to the existence of a Black Hole, all I can say is, "and yet it removes..."

[littlemanpoet]

Aiwendil, why the human mind and human society only?

Also, let me clarify: I am not saying "the myths are true". I'm writing fiction about that myself. I am suggesting that ancient cultures described to the best of their ability (what we choose to call mythology) something that really happened in the sky of their time, which we find almost impossible to believe because what they described is not what we see now.

As for "across all myths", I misspoke. There are ancient cultures respected for their highly accurate recordings of the night sky, namely Egypt, Mesoamerica, and Babylon, where these strange similarities crop up. These, by the way, are starting points.

The heart of the dying sun god story comes from mesoamerican cultures: Mayan and Aztec.

I understand the scientific method and what you say about theories contradicted by new evidence. What I'm talking about, however, is an entire paradigm issue by which certain theories are not even allowed to be considered by those who hold scientific power in universities. Kind of like the literati who refuse to accept Tolkien's works as good literature because it doesn't fit their narrow view of what good literature ought to be.

On general relativity, are you saying the theory has been put to rest in some cases but not others, or that it has been put to rest completely? Being a theory about general relativity, I do believe I am correct in understanding that it purports to account for all forces in relation to each other: gravity, electromageticsm, weak and strong forces (of some kind), and that in relation to each other, no force can be infinite precisely because it must BE in relation to the other forces. If that is incorrect, how?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I agree with what you say, lmp! for the ancient people their gods were real and their actions mattered to them; understanding the nature of their gods may well help them understand their own function. Or something like that...

The sky is an interesting thing. For many ancient religions, the sky was the place where the gods dwelt. The mighty Ziggurats of Mesopotamia stretch up into the Heavens and are believed to have acted as portals for the gods to ascend and descend. It is not only the Creation poem of Genesis that describes it as dividing the waters above from the waters below. It seems to act as a sort of shield against the heavenly waters. Indeed, the Hebrew word for what we call 'the firmament' actually means, literally, a 'beaten metal plate' usually armour. In some traditions (especially Egyptian), mountains are said to hold the sky up. Indeed, some Egyptian texts suggest that the sky was considered to be made of a sort of iron of which pieces often fell to earth. It is not uncommon for the sky to be made before the sun. Often the Sun is a watcher of the skies and the earth. Horus of Egypt is a good example.

I think we all need to remember that Tolkien was one who loved the myths and legends. Science and cosmology were not his forté, so we can't expect them to be his prominent motifs in Middle Earth. We can argue over how true these myths are, but in the end, will that really get us close to what is going on in Middle Earth? Tolkien said in an interview that Middle Earth was our world but at 'a different level of imagination'. I think this is the point. The human imagination is always looking for explanations for the world around us; what better way than to tell stories? We can't assume that all ancient people were just mindless idiots, they had more sense than we often think. Ideas and the progress of stories is only stopped by those greedy for power for themselves. Stories have power, and if you control the stories, you have a lot of control over people. That way tyranny lies. It is therefore interesting to look at some nomadic myths which go through lots of changes, often based on what they see and experience. Many of the tales of the Torah may well be such; Nomads' tales passed from generation to generation.

Urm... I think I'm heading off on a tangent here...

The sun is an important figure to humanity. It gives our little planet more than 90% of its energy. As it is the dominant figure in the sky, I suspect that those who looked around and saw that the world wasn't exactly perfect, made some sort of connection. Perhaps this is where the idea of a pre-sun time came from; the desire to return to a state of none-corruption.
This is mostly guesswork, you understand...

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Also, let me clarify: I am not saying "the myths are true". I'm writing fiction about that myself. I am suggesting that ancient cultures described to the best of their ability (what we choose to call mythology) something that really happened in the sky of their time, which we find almost impossible to believe because what they described is not what we see now.

Again, I think that we agree somewhat. The science of the ancients was the best that they could do at that time; also, the writings etc that we have from those ancient days may be a subset of what was known. As far as we know, someone somewhere wrote about germ theory, but the papyri were destroyed in the drowning of Númenor (though I doubt it ).

As for "across all myths", I misspoke. There are ancient cultures respected for their highly accurate recordings of the night sky, namely Egypt, Mesoamerica, and Babylon, where these strange similarities crop up. These, by the way, are starting points.

It occurred to me a possible reason why 'light' is created before the sun. Those of you up and outside earlier enough in the morning (when you are waiting for the morning paper at the end of your driveway...) may have observed that it becomes light before the sun rises. Some maybe the ancients were just explaining what they observed, which if you assumed a flat earth...

What I'm talking about, however, is an entire paradigm issue by which certain theories are not even allowed to be considered by those who hold scientific power in universities.

Such as? Note that if there exists a scientific cabal, they have yet to allow me to join. Not saying that this is what you mean, but if you want to add 'supernatural' to the mix, then science becomes useless, though a cushy job if you can get it. Why does the moon orbit the Earth? The god created it that way, so we're done and so can go for ice cream (which sounds like a good idea). If a god, by definition, can do anything - even violate its own laws - then what's the use?

Kind of like the literati who refuse to accept Tolkien's works as good literature because it doesn't fit their narrow view of what good literature ought to be.

Not exactly. The Soviets practiced Lysenkoism and ignored the works of Mendel. Was it just subjective opinion? Did they just prefer red to blue, or think that vanilla ice cream was capitalistic? No, using the wrong 'science' - Lysenkoism was a belief based on faith and not evidence - people starved.

On general relativity, are you saying the theory has been put to rest in some cases but not others, or that it has been put to rest completely? Being a theory about general relativity, I do believe I am correct in understanding that it purports to account for all forces in relation to each other: gravity, electromageticsm, weak and strong forces (of some kind), and that in relation to each other, no force can be infinite precisely because it must BE in relation to the other forces. If that is incorrect, how?

First, nothing in science is *ever* put to rest. One of science's strong points is that it constantly tests itself (sure, sometimes the establishment isn't too happy about the new and so tries to squash things, but doesn't this take place everywhere humans are involved?), constantly trying to disprove theories. Scientists do not assume that what's true today will be true tomorrow. Not that there won't be some carryover, as usually ideas are refined and not always thrown out, but, in the end, more information leads to more understanding.

Think that this is why people don't 'get' science. How much more comforting - even to me - to think that everything is known, all is well and someone is minding the shop. How annoying and even scary to know that what you think you know may not be how things truly are.

On the other hand, note that gravity is a theory. If, and the day will come (see below), this theory is modified or overturned, you won't go floating off into space.

Regarding Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: This site should make your head hurt. At issue is how to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. So far, much has been conjectured but nothing proven. How will it all pan out? Don't know, but what I find amusing is that, one day a thousand years from now some person will dust off a 2008 physics book and look and laugh.

"I can't believe they thought that the universe was..."

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Lush

lmp - I strongly suggest that you check out Ken Wilber. You don't have to be into Buddhism to get good stuff out of him. Who knows? You might really like him.

I did check him out before you posted this. His Buddhism doesn't throw me off so much as his promotion of the sciences of supernatural phenomena. Being Christian, I think he is in dangerous waters.

Alatar, I doubt that the recordings of cataclysm go back to prehistoric humanity because (according to my limited knowledge), that which was recorded reveals a rather highly developed understanding and ability to measure the phenomena outside the earth's atmosphere, such as among Babylonians, Mesoamericans, and Egyptians. Additionally, the symbols used for recording these phenomena are quite ideosyncratic to each culture. This suggests that the events occurred within the memory of a culture, but before writing was invented.

Regarding a Golden Age, I have no interest in "going back" either; but I do wish to understand what the ancients meant to convey.

I think science NEEDS to chuck everything and start down a new path.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Alatar, I doubt that the recordings of cataclysm go back to prehistoric humanity because (according to my limited knowledge), that which was recorded reveals a rather highly developed understanding and ability to measure the phenomena outside the earth's atmosphere, such as among Babylonians, Mesoamericans, and Egyptians.

Yes and no. Not that I am not amazed by what they did learn and know, but show me one of these cultures that knew of the planet Neptune. And even more interestingly, why didn't the astrologers know of this and other planets, as each of these massive objects surely had some effect on the person's destiny.

Additionally, the symbols used for recording these phenomena are quite ideosyncratic to each culture. This suggests that the events occurred within the memory of a culture, but before writing was invented.

I'm sorry; I'm not sure what (or all) phenomena to which you refer. What would be amazing is a culture that knew nothing of the sun or moon.

Regarding a Golden Age, I have no interest in "going back" either; but I do wish to understand what the ancients meant to convey.

Agreed, but again I think that the message was more psychological than scientific. Some today consider the 1950's the Golden Age as you had drive-in restaurants and cars with fins. Gas was cheap, and everyone wore bobby socks (whatever they were).

I think science NEEDS to chuck everything and start down a new path.

Meaning? Science does this to some extent, but definitely not to the extent you intend. Should we give up the scientific method? Observe, assume, test, refine, repeat?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Mind you that the Sun-tree and Moon-tree featured in "Valinor", almost the first poem Tolkien wrote containing elements of his later legendarium- 1914 IIRC.

Tolkien's imagination often ran to vignettes or tableaux- scenes intensely visualized which then wound up generating tales. You can still see some of this in the LR. It's characteristic of Tolkien's pre-Somme poems that they depict static scenes- snapshots of an Otherworld which as yet has no history, indeed doesn't appear to move in Time at all (except for the characteristic sense of fading, decay and lost grandeur). It's probably fair to say that "Valinor" and other similar poems like "Habbanan" and "Earendel" predate the mythology, in that they were written without any idea of a narrative or 'historical' context: that was built up around them.

My personal theory is that the idea of the history didn't arise until, and arose because, Tolkien invented a *second* Elvish language, Gnomish/Goldogrin. To a comparative philologist, you coudn't have two related languages, descended through many sound-shifts from a common ancestor, without the populations that spoke them having becaome separated and subjected to different influences. The question immediately presents itself, Why? Tolkien's answer was the 'travail of the Noldoli,' the unwritten Gilfanon's Tale. It was of course characteristic of JRRT to envision an end-state and work towards it, but never get there (vide the Voyages of Earendil).

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by alatar

Yes and no. Not that I am not amazed by what they did learn and know, but show me one of these cultures that knew of the planet Neptune. And even more interestingly, why didn't the astrologers know of this and other planets, as each of these massive objects surely had some effect on the person's destiny.

Neptune is, of course, not visible to the human eye and needed the invention of the telescope. What, in your mind, is the significance of the ancients not knowing about Neptune other than to point out that they didn't have telescopes? As to planetary effect on people's destinies, are you going tongue in cheek? I think astrology in terms of planetary influence on one's destiny is off the mark. But one must wonder why every culture has a tradition of associating disaster with comets? Please, do try to allow yourself to consider that, just maybe, it's not a matter of psychology.

I'm sorry; I'm not sure what (or all) phenomena to which you refer. What would be amazing is a culture that knew nothing of the sun or moon.

Apologies. One such complex of images from culture to culture are: the bearded flying dragon; the hairy flying dragon; the flying hairy witch; (bearded Santa Claus riding from the north pole behind his flying reindeer perhaps being a remnant of this); and these dragons and witch symbols serving in these ancient cultures as the symbol for a comet; and further, this comet symbol being the same symbol used for the planet Venus. Either the mesoamericans in particular really had themselves confused, or they were describing something they were seeing in the sky. (Oh, and we can add to this the Greek mythic legend of Venus being born from the head of Jupiter). These are just some examples.

Agreed, but again I think that the message was more psychological than scientific. Some today consider the 1950's the Golden Age as you had drive-in restaurants and cars with fins. Gas was cheap, and everyone wore bobby socks (whatever they were).

Meaning? Science does this to some extent, but definitely not to the extent you intend. Should we give up the scientific method? Observe, assume, test, refine, repeat?

No, I'm speaking of paradigms. Have you read the work of Thomas Kuhn? Think of the old folk tale of the 7 blind men and the elephant. One of the blind men feels the elephant's leg and concludes that it is a tree, because it feels like a tree. He even goes so far as to discover four trees! And better yet, rounding on one "side" of these four trees, he comes across a very maleable branch, and decides that he has come across a new species of tree.

Try this out: suppose that the magnetic field of the Earth, and gravity, and lightning, and sunspots, and solar wind, and the nodal tapestry of magnetic fields surrounding the sun's "face", are all directly related to each other. What might the mechanism be?

Just thought I'd lay that out there. It seems no clearer answer than that from William Cloud Hicklin will come by way of answer to my original question, and therefore I would have to say that this thread is starting to not be about Tolkien; but you asked the question, so I answered.

[mark12_30]

If I recall correctly, in one of the early versions of the two trees, the elves collected the--- water? Lamp juice?-- from the broken lamps and kept it in pools, basins, resevoirs (which glowed). THen they used this water to , er, water the trees. And the trees shone that way.

Not as nice, perhaps, as trees that shine all by themselves. I think I prefer Laurelin and Telperion having their own intrinsic glow.

If one compares them(Laurelin & Telperion) to the tree of Life and the tree of Good and Evil.... did those trees shine? or of not physically shine, did they in a sense give off revelation?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Neptune is, of course, not visible to the human eye and needed the invention of the telescope. What, in your mind, is the significance of the ancients not knowing about Neptune other than to point out that they didn't have telescopes?

We now can see farther. Should we base our understanding on our solar system pre- or post- telescope? Which would be a more accurate reflection of reality? When we sent a probe out of the solar system, we (not me - had nothing to do with it )...we had to take this planet into account. Ancient beings could be indifferent to Neptune the planet as it had no effect on them. They didn't know it was even there...like germs, the stratosphere, the motion of the planet, etc.

Neptune/Poseidon/Ulmo, however...

As to planetary effect on people's destinies, are you going tongue in cheek?

Surely you know me better than that.

I think astrology in terms of planetary influence on one's destiny is off the mark.

It's called ad hoc. Science discovers a new planet and suddenly the astrologers account for its influence. Do they state that all previous readings were in error?

But one must wonder why every culture has a tradition of associating disaster with comets?

Maybe because some comets caused disasters when their smaller cousins - meteors - smashed into the Earth. That and we are a pattern-seeking lot. Give a person a few random points and s/he will string along a very nice story.

When Julius Caesar was born/died - one of the two - supposedly a comet streaked through the sky. Is there anyone of the same importance today that we could watch that would necessitate the same heavenly signs? And with our telescopes, we have a lot more comets to pick from.

Please, do try to allow yourself to consider that, just maybe, it's not a matter of psychology.

I hope to be as open as stated in your sig. But think of the fun we can have with comets. As we know - for many of them - when they will pass by, we can ask those that believe what events will happen before the comet is here, and then see what happens when it does occur. Also, as many comets are known in history, we can see if truly any event actually occurred at that time. As I noted earlier, Andrew White wrote much about comets and what was believed about them, and, as we gained telescopes and some insight, how our beliefs turned from 'objects thrown by an angry god' to a 'big ball of ice to which we sent a probe.'

And I wonder just what the Shoemaker-Levy comet was trying to say when it smashed into Jupiter on 22-July-1994.

Will consider the rest of your interesting post when time permits ("Santa the bearded witch dragon...hmmm, it's all starting to make sense.")

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

... did they in a sense give off revelation?

Hah! That would be opening a can of tree-worms, or worse, splitting wood.

Originally Posted by alatar

We now can see farther. Should we base our understanding on our solar system pre- or post- telescope?

Are you suggesting that because we have the telescope, any pre-telescope record of the solar system should be discounted or dismissed? ... or just treated with a great deal of suspicion? ... or some other tool of the skeptical mind? Alatar, let's suppose that there's a ship on the ocean on which no one has a spyglass. On the voyage, a storm of hurricane proportions passes by but just misses the ship's route. Everyone onboard ship sees it, and they bring back stories about it. Meanwhile, there was another ship on the ocean and these folks had spyglasses, but they were miles and miles farther away so that even with their spyglasses they didn't see any hurricane. They came ashore and insisted that the people on board the ship without spyglasses obviously were at a disadvantage and couldn't know that there was no hurricane.

If something cataclysmic did happen that could be seen by the naked eye from earth, within cultural memory of the ancients, and they recorded it to the best of their ability, that we have telescopes now with which to view the CURRENT make up of the solar system matters not a whit unless we admit that perhaps they DID see something we would do well to acknowledge, to help our understanding of the solar system.

There are so many signs of violent disruption throughout the solar system that to posit that nothing unusual has happened for billions of years is simply ridiculous. What happened to the planet that used to be the asteroid belt? How did the same kinds of crazy markings appear on Mars and other planets but not others? How is it that some moons and asteroids and planets have one kind of geologlical make up while another set, mixed through each other has a different geological make up? It's like two sets of pool balls had been sent flying across the pool table from different ends, bouncing every which way until they came to rest where they currently are.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Are you suggesting that because we have the telescope, any pre-telescope record of the solar system should be discounted or dismissed?

We hold to what is true. The earth revolves around the sun and not the converse. Regardless, as I was saying, to me the sun "rises in the east and sets in the west," and knowing that this isn't exactly accurate does not diminish its beauty, as surely the ancients thought as well.

... or just treated with a great deal of suspicion?

I treat everything with a great deal of suspicion...except my own pet theories and sacred cows.

Alatar, let's suppose that there's a ship on the ocean on which no one has a spyglass. On the voyage, a storm of hurricane proportions passes by but just misses the ship's route. Everyone onboard ship sees it, and they bring back stories about it. Meanwhile, there was another ship on the ocean and these folks had spyglasses, but they were miles and miles farther away so that even with their spyglasses they didn't see any hurricane. They came ashore and insisted that the people on board the ship without spyglasses obviously were at a disadvantage and couldn't know that there was no hurricane.

I'm in. We have a boat in the Atlantic and a boat in the Pacific. Boat in the Atlantic sees a hurricane and reports said event, though only has eyewitness accounts. Boat in the Pacific, with spyglasses, does not see same hurricane. As this boat was chartered through "Alatar Cruises," and so is filled with a bunch of closed-minded wet blanket skeptics. So far so good.

If something cataclysmic did happen that could be seen by the naked eye from earth, within cultural memory of the ancients, and they recorded it to the best of their ability, that we have telescopes now with which to view the CURRENT make up of the solar system matters not a whit unless we admit that perhaps they DID see something we would do well to acknowledge, to help our understanding of the solar system.

Here are the issues:

• Eyewitness accounts are unreliable.

• Hearsay even less so.

• People are easily fooled (i.e. illusions).

• Some people do not have the knowledge/words to accurately describe an event. Sometimes we get, "It was like..." and after time we lose that it wasn't exactly that.

• Information passed through and down through time has the possibility of becoming distorted.

On the other hand:

• Independent observations can shore up others'. If islanders in the Atlantic also witnessed a hurricane...

• Some events are common or are easily extrapolated from what is known. A storm is something that many people, from many different backgrounds and from many different observation points have witnessed. However, they may disagree to the cause. If the boat in the Atlantic had went up into the water spout and landed in the Pacific; well, this may have occurred but is not even close to the norm, and so the other ship in the Pacific would be asking for more data etc before believing that (not that they would ever believe...).

• Storms in 10,000 BC are very similar to those we have today. There's no known reason (at least to me) to posit that they would not be otherwise. I think that you may have referred to this before as 'uniformitarian.'

There are so many signs of violent disruption throughout the solar system that to posit that nothing unusual has happened for billions of years is simply ridiculous. What happened to the planet that used to be the asteroid belt? How did the same kinds of crazy markings appear on Mars and other planets but not others? How is it that some moons and asteroids and planets have one kind of geologlical make up while another set, mixed through each other has a different geological make up? It's like two sets of pool balls had been sent flying across the pool table from different ends, bouncing every which way until they came to rest where they currently are.

I am so with you (I think), and like the analogy. Just recently in the news, a group reported its findings about an asteroid that hit the Chesapeake Bay (USA) area about 35 million years ago. Every time I look at the Gulf of Mexico, I think about how fragile our existence is here on this one planet.

Maybe we are talking about something like the Noachian flood, which even to me must have some historical basis, though what the truth is I may never learn. Surely you too wonder what these ancient people lived through, what they saw and were thinking when any interesting event happened. Why did they choose to explain certain processes in nature using 'gods?" Was it extrapolations from the 'strong leader' and anthropomorphizing of other things in their environment? Was the explanation correlated with the current technology (i.e. sun and moon are natural things, then persons riding on chariottes, and so on)?

I want to thank you for opening this up in my head, as it's given me much to think about. And sorry, still working on Santa-dragon-witch.