PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 131 



as they had doue for thousands of years before, aud occasionally persist in doing 

 still. But, coming to Tromholt, we read that in A.D. 1550 the "common people " 

 thought the lights were "a reflection from the schools of herrings which assembled 

 about the beginning of autumn, and, by turning hither and thither, and leaping 

 up and down, threw such a light upon the clouds that the heavens flared up." He 

 transcribes several curious accounts, as of " a glowing sword which thrice smote 

 the earth and swiftly rose again," and of " a black cloud in the north-west with a 

 long neck and a head with a Russian hat and plumes." This was met by another 

 with a Mecklenburg hat, and a third with a Royal Crown, and "one could see 

 that the one with the hat had a long pointed beard and a crooked nose." Next 

 there came " a tremendous big bear which opened its mouth wider and wider and 

 spewed fire, steam and smoke high into the sky. , . . What all this is to betoken 

 is all in the hands of the Lord." There is a case where " a long neck grew from 

 a cloud which became like a living camel, and against it came a fearful beast, which 

 was most like a drau;on, with a long, crooked tail." When the dragon attacked 

 the camel, this beast opened its jaws, swallowed the greater part of the dragon, 

 and both vanished. This display does not bear the marks of an aurora so clearly 

 as the other accounts, but it shows how supremely fitting it was for Shakespeare 

 to put into the mouth of a Prince of Denmark the familiar words — 



Hamlet — Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape like a camel ? 



Polonms — By the way, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. 



Hamlet — Methiuks it is like a weasel. 



Polonius — It is backed like a weasel. 



Hamlet — Or like a whale. 



Polonius — Very like a whale. 



But we need not go to the Baltic or the Mediterranean for accounts of the super- 

 stitious fears with which people once looked on the lovely phosphorescence of the 

 aurorse. Here is a pen picture by the Rev. James Harvey, a Northamptonshire 

 rector, whose " Meditations Among the Tombs" were once classical, who was a 

 fair astronomer, and wrote " Contemplations on the Starry Heavens" : — 



" Sometimes, at this hour, .another most remarkable sig^ht amuses the curious and alarms the vulgar. A 

 blaze of lambent meteors is kindled, or some very extraordinary lights are refracted, in the quarters of the north. 

 The streams of radiance, like leo^ions rushmg to the engagement, meet and mingle, insomuch that the air seems 

 to be all conflicting fire. Within a while they start from one another; and, like legions in precipitate flight, 

 sweep, each a separate way, through the firmament. Now they are quiescent : anon they are thrown into a 

 quivering motion ; presently the whole horizon is illuminated with the glancing flames. Sometimes, with an 

 aspect awfully ludicrous, they represent extravagant and antic vagaries, at other times you would suspect that 

 some invisible hand was playing off the dumb artillery of the skies, and by a strange expedient, giving us the 

 flash without the roar. 



"The villagers gaze at the spectacle, first with wonder, then with horror. A gruesome panic seizes the 

 country. Every heart throbs and every face is pale. The crowds that flock together, instead of diminishing, 

 increase the dread. They catch contagion from each other's looks and words ; while fear is in every eye and 

 every tongue speaks the language of terror. Some see hideous shapes, armies mixing in fierce encounter, i>r 

 -fields swimming with blood. Some foresee direful events : states overthrown, or mighty monarchs tottering on 

 their thrones. Others, scared with still more frightful apprehensions, think of nothing but the day of doom. 

 ' Sure,' says one, ' the unalterable bow is struck and the end of all things come.' ' See,' says another, ' how the 

 blasted stars look wan ! Are not these the signs of the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven ?' 'Jesus, 

 prepare us,' cries a third, and lifts up his eyes in devotion, ' for the archangel's trump and the great tribunal.'" 



Nor is it needful to leave our own country to find such examples : we have 

 them in the letters of the Jesuits from Canada. Father Biard writes from Port 

 Royal, now Annapolis, N.S., Januarj^ 31st, 1612 : — 



" The stars had already begun to appear when suddenly, towards the north- 

 west, a part of the heavens became blood red, and the light, spreading little by 

 little, in spear and spindle-shaped beams, shifted until it was over the settlement 

 of the men from St. Malo, tinging the whole river and making it luminous. It 

 lasted about eight minutes, then disappeared, when the same programme was re- 

 peated. Our Indians cried out, ' Gara gara, endirquar, gara gara,' that is, we 

 shall have war, such signs denote war. Nevertheless . . . during the day there 

 was nothing but friendliness. But at even everything went contrariwise— con- 

 fusion, quarrels, rage, uproar between our savages and the people from St. Malo. 

 I do not doubt that a cursed band of furious and sanguinary spirits were fluttering 

 about us all that night, expecting every hour and moment a horrible massacre of 

 the few Christians who were there, but the goodness of God restrained them, the 

 wretches." 



A similar meteor in 1616, when also the sky became wonderfully red, was 

 greeted by the Indians with the exclamation, "Gara gara, maredo.'' War, war, . 



