Greetings fellow story lovers, this is Casimir back once again with a new article on folklore and history from around the world. The stars must be right or something, for once again I am actually on time for the topic of today’s article. This month we’re going to be talking about the Sun. More specifically, the Sun’s place in myths and legends, rather than talking about the sun as a celestial body.
The sun — the great life-giving, glowing celestial ball that our tiny blue dot revolves around. Aside from the fact that the daystar brings us warmth and life, throughout human history, and even prehistory, we have assigned a deific significance to the sun. Aspects of sun worship can be found in nearly every culture.
One of the first notes about the Sun in mythology is covering the depiction of the gods themselves. As far as our current knowledge goes, the idea of the solar boat or solar chariot is an older concept. However, the most well known version of the solar barge idea is Atet, the great barge of the Egyptian god Ra. The famed Nebra Sky Disk is also believed to depict a solar barge. Then there are the solar chariots controlled by Sol the Norse goddess, and Helios the Greek god. Generally, the sun barges and solar chariots are controlled by sun deities, however, one does not need to have a vehicle to be a sun deity. Examples of sun deities without chariots are Aten of Egypt, Sol Invictus of Rome, and Tonatiuh of the Aztecs. Then there are the gods who are specifically not anthropomorphized. Examples of them are once again, Sol Invictus and Aten. Sol Invictus, depending on the time in the Roman empire, was either given a human form, or appeared as the traditional depiction of the sun. Aten appeared as a disk, specifically the sun disk of Egypt, similar to the one worn upon the crown of Isis.
The common idea is that solar deities are normally male. There are a great amount of cultures who don’t follow that example though. The Norse with their goddess Sol, is a relatively well known example due to games like Smite. You also have Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess, one of the prime deities of Japanese mythology. Some lesser known, but also important examples are the Australian Bila, Inuit Malina, and the Canary Island Chaxiraxi. One could make the speculative claim that the depiction of such a primary god in a culture could show how gender focused a given culture is. However, that could be the topic of a thesis, let along a blog post. The sun is depicted in many ways, as nurturing, powerful, life giving, and various other things. This is why it is hard to pin down a common gender for sun deities. None of these traits can be assigned to any one gender as a rule, because traits tend not to be gender specific.
The depiction of sun deities can also change significantly depending on the cultures location in the world. Both the Norse and Inuit deities are being chased through the sky by a different force. The Norse sun goddess being chased by Skoll and Hati, and the Inuit deity by her brother Igaluk. Could it be that because the sunlight is so fickle in those parts of the world that this is the case? It seems likely to me. You have the opposite case in places where the sun is an almost constant force year round, like Sol Invictus and Aten in Rome and Egypt respectively. It is not a far leap to make the association that the position of a sun god in a given culture can be tied to the climate of a given area. This is my speculation though.
The sun remains important to us today as it did in the past, aside from the obvious importance of not allowing our blue dot of a planet to become a frozen blue dot. Even today we build great temples to the sun in hopes of it blessing us with power. I’d make the argument that our temples are a little more effective than those of our ancestors since they actually bring an effect. That is because our modern day solar temples are solar power plants. The sun will most likely remain an important part of human culture in perpetuity.
This is all that I have for today on the great solar spherical body. I hope you have enjoyed our discussion of mythology, folklore, and history on History with The Skald’s Circle. If you’d like to know more about these traditions, or perhaps discuss it with me I’m always more than willing. Also, if you have something you would like us to research or have a new article topic in mind, please let us know! If you learned something new, give us a like, and let us know, we really appreciate being noticed… Until then, I’ll be back next month with another fascinating topic. This is Casimir, signing off, and remember, always check your sources very, very carefully, our culture, and our history depends on it.
