Wonders in the Sky (14 page)

749, Ulster, Ireland
Aerial ships, seen along with their crews

The 15
^th
century Annals of Ulster, which cover the period AD 431 to AD 1540, state that “Ships, with their crews, were seen in the air above Cluain Moccu.”

 

Source:
The Annals of Ulster
(Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100001A/index.html)

53.

Circa 760, France: Abductions and aerial ships

During the reign of Pépin le Bref (715-768) many extraordinary phenomena are said to have appeared in the French skies. The air was filled with human figures, ships with sails and battling armies. Several individuals stated they had been abducted by aerial beings.

A contemporary source has never been found and there is a strong suspicion that it originated with the
Comte De Gabalis
(1670), by Abbé N. de Montfaucon de Villars.

 

Source: Jules Garinet,
Histoire de la Magie en France
(Paris, 1818).

54.

776, Syburg Castle, Germany
Two flying objects stop a war

In 776 the Saxons rebelled against Charlemagne and attacked the castle of Syburg with continued lack of success, finally deciding to storm the castle. They reportedly “saw the likeness of
two shields red with flame wheeling over the church. When the heathens outside saw this miracle, they were at once thrown into confusion and started fleeing to their camp in terror.
Since all of them were panic-stricken, one man stampeded the next and was killed in return, because those who looked back out of fear impaled themselves on the lances carried on the shoulders of those who fled before them. Some dealt each other aimless blows and thus suffered divine retribution.”

 

Source:
Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard's Histories
, trans. Bernhard Walter Scholz (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970), 53, 55.

55.

811, Near Aachen on Via Aquisgrana, Germany
Great flaming globe

Emperor Charlemagne sees a great flaming globe descending from east to west and is thrown from his horse. Although the horse may have been frightened by an especially bright meteor, the situation suggests either that the object was close to the emperor's party, or that the meteor was very spectacular indeed: “One day in his last campaign into Saxony against Godfred, King of the Danes, Charles himself saw a ball of fire fall suddenly from the heavens with a great light, just as he was leaving camp before sunrise to set out on the march. It rushed across the clear sky from right to left, and everybody was wondering what was the meaning of the sign, when the horse which he was riding gave a sudden plunge, head foremost, and fell, and threw him to the ground so heavily that his cloak buckle was broken and his sword belt shattered; and after his servants had hastened to him and relieved him of his arms, he could not rise without their assistance. He happened to have a javelin in his hand when he was thrown, and this was struck from his grasp with such force that it was found lying at a distance of twenty feet or more from the spot.”

 

Source:
Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne,
trans. Samuel Epes Turner (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880).

56.

813, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Mysterious star

One night, a hermit named Pelayo heard music in a wood and saw a peculiar shining star above Mount Libredon, a former Celtic sacred site. Because of this sighting the place was called, in Latin, “Campus Stellae,”
field of the star
, a name that was later turned into
Compostela
.

A modern brochure adds: “Bishop
Teodomiro
, who received notice of that event, instituted an investigation, and so the tomb of the Apostle was discovered. King Alphonse II declared Saint James the patron of his empire and had built a chapel at that place (…) More and more pilgrims followed the way of Santiago, the
‘Path of Saint James,'
and the original chapel soon became the cathedral of the new settlement, Santiago de Compostela.”

 

Source:
Santiago, History and Legends

(http://www.red2000.com/spain/santiago/history.html).

To the best of our knowledge, the story first appeared in the
Concordia de Antealtares
, a text dated from 1077.

57.

814, China, exact location unknown
Stars emerge from an object

A luminous object rises, lights up the ground. Many small “stars” emerge from it.

 

Source: Biot,
Catalogue des étoiles filantes en Chine
(1846), op. cit.

58.