Wonders in the Sky (18 page)

The Second Millennium opened with intense religious fervor: the world was in terrible fear of cosmic upheaval, the Last Judgment and the end of the world, but a new spirit of exploration also appeared: Viking Leif Ericson (c. 980-1020), the son of Eric the Red, discovered America while Christianity reached Iceland and Greenland. The Chinese perfected their invention of gunpowder. Normans extended their influence to England after the battle of Hastings (1066). Conflict between different faiths intensified, leading in 1096 to the first of eight murderous Crusades that would force the blending of two great civilizations and help introduce new philosophical ideas, including Hermeticism, into European kingdoms barely emerging from the Dark Ages.

The rudiments of science arrived in Europe from the Middle East, with primitive astronomical instruments, early tables of star positions, and knowledge of Greek medicine and philosophy transmitted by Arabic scholars. The first cathedrals were built, the gothic style appeared at
Saint-Germain-des-Prés
in Paris, and the first account of the use of a mariner's compass was noted (in 1125). During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a new invention started its slow spread into Western Europe from Spain, with the adoption of paper as a replacement for parchment. Far less expensive, paper greatly accelerated the spread of knowledge. The twelfth century would also see the founding of Cambridge University in England, the compilation of the Edda mythologies in Scandinavia, and the teachings of Albertus Magnus. Early in the thirteenth century Fibonacci introduced Arabic numerals into Europe, and the great University movements expanded in all countries, from Brussels and Salisbury to Salamanca, Siena, Toulouse and Vicenza, supported by great scholars like Roger Bacon (1214-1294). Libraries appeared everywhere, preserving ancient knowledge and contemporary chronicles.

Travelers became increasingly ambitious, encouraged by Marco Polo's voyage to China from 1271 to 1295. Knowledge about the world began circulating more widely, while the Crusades ended (in 1291) with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem settling in Cyprus. Things took a disastrous turn in the mid-fourteenth century when the Black Death devastated Europe, killing a third of the population of England (1347). Early in the fifteenth century the Chinese compiled the first Encyclopedia (in 22,937 volumes!), a civil war began in France, Joan of Arc led the French armies against England, and Portuguese navigators found the first Negroes near Cap Blanc in western Africa, starting the slave trade again.

Everything suddenly accelerated in the last years of the fifteenth century: Leonardo da Vinci made his famed scientific discoveries, Copernicus studied at Cracow, the first terrestrial globe was constructed in Nuremberg, Johan Gutenberg used metal plates for printing and the king and queen of Spain, against the advice of their committee of experts, financed the voyage of an Italian navigator named Christopher Columbus. The world had changed.

76.

25 April 1001, Foggia, Italy
Strange flashes and a luminous lady

The count of Aviemore, tired after a day of hunting, decided to spend the night in a rustic hut. In the middle of the night he was awakened by servants and friends frightened by strange flashes, who urged the hunters to flee with them, fearing a forest fire. He decided not to run away with his companions but to cautiously study the strange phenomenon. Heading for the place where the flashes came from, the Count realized that there was no fire or burning trees, but a strange light. Among the flashes he saw a beautiful lady, whom he took to be the Virgin Mary.

A farmer named Nicholas, nicknamed Strazzacappa, who was going to work, saw the vision as well and reportedly heard a request from the apparition for a place of worship to be erected there. The case received publicity and a small chapel built at the spot became a center of pilgrimage. After a few years the Verginiani, led by William of Vercelli, settled there. When they merged with the Cistercians, the now famous monastery passed to the care of these monks. The church was elevated to the dignity of basilica by Pope Paul VI on 31 May 1978.

 

Source: Marino Gamba,
Apparizioni mariane nel corso di due millenni
(Udine: Ediz. Il Segno, 1999).

77.

Circa 1010, Ostium, Italy
Five-year old child abducted

Peter Damian, Cardinal-Bishop of the Italian city of Ostium (1007-1072), recorded what would be regarded today as a typical abduction involving the five-year-old son of a nobleman: “One night he was carried out of the monastery into a locked mill, where he was found in the morning. And when he was questioned, he said that he had been carried by strangers to a great feast and bidden to eat; and afterwards he was put into the mill through the roof.”

What we see here is an early instance of a thread that will become increasingly important as the chronology develops, focusing on alleged interaction between human witnesses and creatures of another order. While a simplistic Christian interpretation classifies them as “demons,” more sophisticated scholars recognized they did not fit easily within the biblical definitions of good and evil. In the Moslem world they would be recognized as the Djinni. In the later medieval world they will become the Fairies, the elves, the Elementals of the Alchemical tradition, the “Good Neighbors” of the Celtic world. The parallels are obvious between the beliefs in such beings and contemporary abduction stories made popular by television.

“Great feasts” are a staple of fairy folklore. Abductees were usually “bidden to eat” when the fairies whisked them off to their hidden palaces, just as people often claim to be given pills or liquids to swallow in today's accounts. Even being pulled, pushed or dragged through the roof has its parallel in modern UFO lore.

 

Source:
Malleus Maleficarum
, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated with an introduction, bibliography and notes by Montague Summers (London: Bracken Books, 1996), 105. The works of S. Peter Damian, which have been more than once collected, may be found in Migne,
Patres Latini
, CXLIV-CXLV.

78.

7 July 1015, Kyoto, Western Japan
Objects emerge from ‘mother stars'

The Director General of Saemonfu [the Royal Guard] said that he had witnessed two stars meeting at night. “
The circumstances were as follows: Both stars flew slowly towards each other and the moment they were 10 meters or so from each other, there came little stars rushing out of each big star
, coming towards the other big star, and soon returned to their respective mother star, then the two mother stars flew away swiftly. After this meeting, clouds appeared and covered the sky. I hear that people in ancient times also witnessed such a phenomenon, but recently it was so rare that I was impressed not a little.”

 

Source: Masaru Mori, “The Female Alien in a Hollow Vessel,”
Fortean Times
, 48 (1987): 48;
Inforespace
23:35.

79.

Autumn 1023, France: A ballet of stars

“There were seen in the southern part of the sky in the Sign of the Lion, two stars that fought each other all Autumn; the largest and most luminous of the two came from the east, the smallest one from the west, the small one rushed furiously and fearfully at the biggest one which didn't allow the speck to approach, but he struck her with his mane of light, repulsing her far towards the east.”

 

Source: Adémar de Chabannes,
Chronicon
, book 3, ch. 62, in J. Chavanon,
Adémar de Chabannes, Chronique
(Paris: A. Picard, 1897).

80.