As April 8 total solar eclipse approaches, don't worry: An animal isn't eating the sun

Eclipse watchers are preparing to gather on April 8 for a total eclipse of the sun, visible from a large swath of the midwest and even the southernmost corner of Michigan. It's a festive event, a chance to witness a once-in-a-lifetime celestial phenomenon.

Or ... it's the sky wolves Sköll and Hati swallowing the sun, kicking off the apocalyptic last battle known as Ragnorak.

That's how medieval Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson explained eclipses, and there's a real appeal to this story: The sky wolves Sköll and Hati chase the sun and moon across the sky. Sometimes, the wolves catch up. Someday, the sun and the moon won't come back.

It's got drama. It's got action. It's got dire consequences — and you can help save the world (more on that later). It's basically a medieval Jason Statham movie, one that also explains a phenomenon ancient people were eager to understand.

"Almost without exception, people in antiquity thought eclipses were trouble, big trouble," said E.C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Ancient people kept track of the passage of time and the seasons by the movement of the sun and the moon. Months are based on the lunar cycle. "Eclipses created panic, sometimes terror. It's a fundamental breakdown of the basic order of the world. If the cycle of day and night goes awry, it's not just the sun that's in trouble, everything's in trouble."

A giant frog, a celestial dog and star demons

Like the Vikings, most ancient humans believed eclipses were caused by some regionally appropriate animal eating the sun or the moon.

It's not quite as crazy as it sounds, Krupp said, "Because that’s what it looks like. A little nibble when the eclipse starts, then more and more like a crescent in the sky ... You've got some kind of creature, hostile and carnivorous, going after essential elements of the environment."

In ancient China, the sun-devouring animal was said to be a heavenly dog, Krupp said, adding that the celestial dragon often mentioned in Chinese eclipse folklore is a more modern invention.

In southeast Asian countries like Laos and Vietnam, the culprit was a giant frog. In the Dresden Codex, one of four surviving Mayan bark-paper books, Krupp said, the sun and the moon are repeatedly depicted falling into the open jaws of a serpent. In central Mexico, ancient carvings show a jaguar swallowing the sun; in the Andes, it's a mountain lion. In Iranian and central Asian eclipse lore, "a dragon or dragon-like creature was identified as causing all the trouble," Krupp said.

One of Krupp's favorite stories comes from the Hindu Mahabharata: A creation myth involves churning an ocean of milk, creating a variety of gods, goddesses and gems, a powerful poison and the elixir of immortality. Before the god Vishnu could secure the elixir, the demon Rahu stole a sip, but the sun and the moon were watching and Rahu's transgression was exposed. Vishnu sliced off Rahu's head, but Rahu had drunk that elixir. His head had become immortal, and it continues to chase after the sun and the moon in retribution, sometimes catching up and taking a bite.

Aztec lore included star demons called Tzitzimitl, skeletal female figures with sharp claws. Surviving Aztec books explain that the Tzitzimitl stars attack the sun, causing it to disappear, and descend to earth to possess humans.

Inuit folklore, said Todd Young, director of the Fred G. Dale Planetarium at Wayne State College in Nebraska, had a more benign explanation: The sun and the moon were a warring brother and sister. Sometimes, they briefly reconciled, and showed their affection in an embrace.

But science existed

Here's the kicker: Some ancient people understood rudimentary astronomy, Krupp said — the ancient Greeks by the 5th century BCE, and in China, during the Han Dynasty, after the 3rd century BCE.

Fifth-century BCE Greek historian Herodotus claimed 6th-century Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus had been the first to accurately predict an eclipse. Roman natural historian Pliny the Elder, killed at Herculaneum when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, recorded an eclipse in 59 CE (or 71, historical records can be wobbly) that still pops up in modern eclipse conversations.

"So they know what’s going on with an eclipse, but that doesn’t make them any less troublesome, because predicting eclipses is not that easy, and people are going to associate bad news with eclipses even up till the 19^th century," Krupp said.

In the 12th century, an eclipse was believed to have caused or at least predicted the death of England's King Henry I, despite that the eclipse of Aug. 2, 1133, happened two years before Henry's death in 1135.

"Even in the 16^th and 17^th centuries you'll see these broadsides where eclipses are blamed for bad things, and associated with national priorities," Krupp said. "I would suggest that (eclipse superstition) hasn't really disappeared." Every time an eclipse is predicted, he said, the observatory gets calls asking if the event will harm a pregnant woman or a newborn.

But, he noted, caution around an eclipse isn't unwarranted.

"There's so much cautionary commentary about looking at the sun during a solar eclipse, and that's quite reasonable, but in the broad way people consume information, they took it as a blanket prohibition," he said. "We don’t know if people didn’t let other people go outside because there was a demon about, or if they’d been told it was dangerous — because it was."

More:What is the meaning of the word 'eclipse'? Here is its origin ahead of April 8 event

Thanks, Newton

Humanity's relationship to eclipses really started to change with Newtonian physics, Krupp said, because it became possible to predict with high accuracy when an eclipse would occur.

By the 1950s, astronomers were organizing scientific expeditions to observe eclipses, but our modern infatuation with eclipse-watching didn't really start until the 1970s.

"Clearly there are millions of people going to a lot of trouble and spending a lot of money to go see this eclipse, and this happens at every solar eclipse. These are real destinations for people," he said. For most of human history, "an eclipse was the last thing you wanted to see."

How you can save the world 

Some folklore explains the return of the sun, Wayne State's Young said: It's way too hot to eat, so the frog or wolf or snake spits it out.

But ancient people weren't always content to wait. When a giant animal was assaulting the sun and the moon, they saw it as an opportunity to act.

"They started to make a lot of noise," he said. "They would yell, clap their hands, smash pans together, anything to provoke whatever animal or demon was biting the sun. They thought by making a lot of noise, they could get it over sooner."

It's a tradition Krupp has continued at the Griffith Observatory: During solar and lunar eclipses, Krupp puts on a wizard hat and robe, and leads a group of Angelenos in clanging pots and pans together.

It's all in good fun. "Griffith Observatory is a public observatory, and that means we try to bring the universe to everybody," he said. "This place exists to put eyeballs to the universe, and nothing does that better than an actual celestial event."

Nancy Kaffer is editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. She kinda believes that thing about sky wolves. Contact: nkaffer@freepress.com. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.