Northern Lights

Connections

• Though still a child, Kaya and Blue led her people through the Northern Lights, straight into the heart of Jotunheim

Context

You probably know what the Northern Lights are: A beautiful display of swirling colors in the skies of the earth's tundra and arctic regions, also known as the Aurora Borealis. There are actually many cultures that have myths and legends associated with these lights, not just the Inuit people or other tribes in the area.

If you are curious about what causes these lights (or you forgot), it's a result of gaseous particles released from the sun colliding into the Earth's atmosphere. Different gasses produce different colors. Because of the angle of the earth's tilt, these collisions (and the lights) generally only occur around the north and south poles. Such lights that occur near in the northern hemisphere are called "aurora borealis," while lights in the south are actually called "aurora australis." They actually mirror each other. If you see the Northern Lights one night, chances are you'd be seeing very much the same display in the Antarctic region. Cool, huh?

Whether the Northern Lights is known as the pathway to Jotunheim is not confirmed anywhere I've seen, but the Norse people did believe the Northern Lights was actually the Bifrost, a rainbow bridge that connects Midgard to Valhalla.