RURICOLA ON THE AURORA BOREALIS. 



365 



<( A. D. 1122. After this there were many shipmen on the sea and 

 on fresh water, who said that they saw in the north-east, level with the 

 earth, a fire huge and broad, which anon waxed in length up to the 

 welkin, and the welkin undid itself in four parts and fought against it, 

 as if it would quench it, and the tire waxed nevertheless up to the 

 heaven. The fire they saw in the day-dawn, and it lasted until it was 

 light over all. That was on the 7th day before the ides of December," 

 p. 343. 



" A. D. 1 131 . This year, after Christmas, on a Monday night at 

 the first sleep, was the heaven on the northern hemisphere all as if it 

 were a burning pile, so that all they who saw it were so dismayed as 

 they never were before. This was on the 3rd day before the ides of 

 January." p. 361. The learned editor remarks on this last appearance 

 <c Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights ; " and I presume the same 

 remark to be equally applicable to the other instances of red and fiery 

 appearances in the heaven. 



To the foregoing may be added one other example from another 

 of our annalists, who records the following appearance with reference 

 to the year 1173: — " On the ides of February there appeared in the 

 heaven a wonderful sign soon after midnight ; for a certain redness was 

 seen in the air between the east and west in the boreal region. And 

 athwart that redness were white rays, which now slender like lances, 

 and now broad like tables (or boards), now here, now there, were raised 

 high from earth as it were up to heaven. The aforesaid rays were 

 shining white, as the rays of the sun when they pierce a very thick 

 cloud ; thereupon there followed a lightsome brightness, like to the 

 summer dawn (aurora? similis oestivce) when it clearly brightens into 

 day. At last there was lifted up from the earth as it were,, in the 

 same quarter, a very thick blackish cloud, which spreading onwards by 

 slow degrees overshadowed that daylight." The original Latin may be 

 found in the appendix to the life of King Henry II , vol. vi. p. 436, 

 2nd edit, by George Lord Lyttelton, who remarks upon it, " It is hardly 

 possible to give a more exact description than this, which Gervase of 

 Canterbury has delivered down to us, of an Aurora Borealis, a phe- 

 nomenon then unusual in these parts of the globe, but of late much 

 more frequent." 



Thus I apprehend it to be clear enough, that the meteor in question not 

 only had appeared, but had been often recorded by our annalists as well 

 before the year 1560 as before 1715. With respect to the latter period, 

 Dr. Pegge, in the paper before cited, observes, " The lights that appeared 



vol. i. — no. viii. (august, 1833.) c c 



