The aurora borealis

 Part 6.- You are going to read an article about a natural phenomenon in the night sky. Six sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which fits each gap (37-42). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

 

The aurora borealis

A new book explores the many myths and legends attached to the magical displays in the skies we know as the aurora borealis. Adrian Bridge reports.

 

To the ancient Greeks, the magical dancing lights that occasionally appeared in the night sky were known as Aurora, the goddes of the dawn. When the lights filled the skies with their dramatic displays of colour, it was said that Aurora was riding her chariot across the heavens to announce the arrival of Helios the sun, and another new day. The twisting dancing forms the displays took were the result  of the efforts of Boreas, one of the four winds.

There are, of course, many myths that over the millenia have been passed down to explain the extraordinary spectacle of the aurora borealis – more commonly termed the Northern Lights. 37.-____ And in a recently published book Life Beneath the Northern Lights, a research team lead by Lizzy Pattison is well aware of this.

 

In the book, Pattison and her team have sought to throw light on some of the more colourful stories that have grown up around the phenomenon. 38.-_____ This strategy is cleverly handle so that the reader’s imagination is engaged.

Much of the book focuses on the legends and lifestyles of the Sami people, indigenous to Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Some Sami still have the traditional belief that the lights emanate from their ancestors and must be treated with immense respect. 39.-______ In one account, a sacred bear rescues someone taken in that way.

Elsewhere in the norther hemisphere, there have been many other interpretaions. The Chinese saw in the lights fire-breathing dragons; the Fox Indians of North America believed that they were ghosts of enemies who brought ill fortune. More cheerily, the Scots believed they were merry dancers. 40.-____ The Canadian Indians saw the lights as spirits engaged in a ball game!

Of course we know better now and have scientific explanations for the Northern Lights – displays occur when solar particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere and emit burning gases that produce different coloured lights. We know that the aurora borealis occurs in an oval doughnut-shaped area located above the magnetic pole that the best sightings are within the ‘doughtnut’ and away from artificial light and moonlight.

 

The opening chapter of the book is devoted to a comprehensive review of the scientific explanation for the aurora borealis, with a further chapter offering practical adviice on how best to capture the lights on film. 41.-______

‘Knowing the background to the myths and stories that have grown up aroudn the lights can only improve the experience of seeing them,’ said Jonny Cooper, the founder of Off the Map Travel, a soft adventure specialist. He helped with the book by flying the research learn to northern Sweden. 42.-___ ‘You can stand under the night skies and watch in awe, just as our forfathers did,’ Cooper says. The experience can… be so powerful that unless we knew better we would find ourselves asking if there were not some other force at work.’

A.- Traditionally, they remained inside during a display; even today, if caught outside, few dare to whistle in case the lights carry them away.

B.- More scientific explanations are available now, of course, but the legends are what fascinate people.

 

C.- In other words, even with a scientific understanding of the phenomenon, the tales lose none of their magic.

D.- That way they could explore the phenomenon first-hand.

E.- We are transported back to the times when those who witnessed the spectacle could only attribute it to the supernatural.

 

F.- This theme, with variations, is relatively common in the mithology.

G.- Undoubtedly these are both invaluable, but there is something in the naivety and the drama of those early explanations that can still fire the imagination.