Humans above all else are storytellers , and myth and legends ignite our mental imagery .
TheLord of the Rings , a well - known contemporary fabrication , tells of a dark , terrific pile full of fire . The fire natural spring emerging from Stromboli , a Sicilian vent dubbed the “ Lighthouse of the Mediterranean , ” made such an picture on Tolkien that he wasinspiredto create the fictional volcano for his novel .
In a way , this forward-looking mythical good deal is based on something real . As it turns out , there are plenty of far older tales that have more than a kernel of truth to them – here ’s a selection of some of the most vivid .
Crater Lake and the Battle of the Gods
The Native American Klamath tribe believe that Crater Lake in Oregon was once a grandiloquent mountain namedMazama . Back then , it was dwell by Llao , their deity of the underworld .
Engaging in an epical battle with Skell the sky god , fire and native sulphur fly across the skies between Mazama and the nearby Mount Shasta . Llao misplace the fight , and went back to the underworld . Skell collapsed the mountain on top of him and imprisoned him everlastingly , before topping off this prison with a beautiful blue lake .
This myth is in reality describing a7,700 - year - old volcanic volcanic eruption , one which geologist know was over 40 times the magnate of the famous May 1980 cataclysm at Mount St. Helens . A huge reservoir of magma rupture the crust , blew a hole in the landscape , and left a massive crater to be filled in with rainwater .
Sri Lanka and the Ape - Men Army
A Landsat 7 image of Rama ’s Bridge , sometimes known as Adam ’s Bridge , free-base on another myth in early Moslem textbook . NASA
TheRamayana , anIndian Sanskrit epic , feature a classic ancient kidnap plot . Sita , the married woman of the god Rama , is stolen and taken to Demon Kingdom on the island of Lanka . An army of ape - like men , along with his brother Lakshman , built a floating bridgework ( Rama ’s Bridge ) between India and Lanka , from which they traverse over and successfully vanquished Ravana , the demon big businessman .
Although this elaborate tale is full of fanciful item , the bridge itself actually subsist . aeriform surveys clear show a 48 - klick - long ( 30 - mil - long ) overwhelm stretch oflimestone shoalsand guts dilute between the two land mass .
This bridge – which is only a few meters below the piss ’s Earth’s surface in some parts – is likely the inspiration for the ancient Hindu legend . It was reportedly above the water until a15th - century cyclonebrought a vast storm billow into the channel and sunk it beneath the waves .
The Guest Star
Around the yr 1006 , uranologist across the world spotted what they described as a “ client sensation ” in the sky . Iranian scholar Ibn Sina , however , gave a far more elaborate explanation of the event than most others .
In theKitab al - Shifa(the Book of Healing ) , he explain how the transient target , which could be construe in the sky for month , kept change color . He added that it throw out sparks before last fading out .
For a long sentence , the object was suspected of being a comet , but we now know that Sina was looking at a supernova , one that took place 7,200 class ago and whose seeable lighting only reached Earth at the turn of the first millenary . Although its visible wavelength have since dissipated from vista , the high - zip remnants of SN 1006 can still be seen thanks to NASA’sChandra XTC - ray Observatory .
The colour change in this case may refer to the uniting of twowhite dwarfs , which would produce a particularly gumptious supernova bursting with colour . This is exactlywhat Sina account , which mean that not only is this legend true , but he provided innovative stargazer with contingent that may otherwise have been lost .
Atlantis
One of the most well - known myth in human history , and first describe by Greek philosopher Plato , tell apart a story of a civilisation at its top sinking beneath the wave , lose for all timeless existence . It ’s intemperately debated , but a number of archeologist remember that it could have been based on the flop of the Minoan empire .
Around 3,650 years ago , a powerful volcanic bam rockedSantorini , then referred to as Thera . The vast magma bedroom was empty so catastrophically chop-chop that the core of the island break , sending atsunamiacross to Crete and flooding much of Thera with the inflowing Aegean Sea . Suffice to say , the Minoan civilization sunk beneath the waving and was never heard from again .
The Guest Star , which was actually a type 1a supernova , SN 1006 . NASA
Thunderbird and the Whale
Another aboriginal American tale mouth of aThunderbird , a good-hearted supernatural being , swooping down into the sea and seize a homicidal whale , one that was depriving the Quileute folk of resourcefulness .
During this struggle , sinewy wave were yield , and many multitude on the land were shoot down in the bedlam . finally , the Thunderbird manage to lift the whale out of the ocean before dropping it onto the land with an all-powerful thumping .
implausibly , back in the 1980s , geologists expose evidence that apowerful earthquakeoccurred in the Pacific Northwest in 1700 , one which dislodge enough of the ocean to cause a tsunami . Not only did this hit the American coast where the tribe would have lived , but it was so powerful that it manage to accomplish Japan .
Additionally , Aiornis , a prehistoric giant bird that early North American settler would have seen , may have been the inspiration for the Thunderbird . With a wingspread of up to 5 time ( 16 feet ) , it used to pounce down on whale carcase to feast . Although it ’s unlikely it would have lifted one onto realm .
aboriginal American totems of the Thunderbird near Vancouver , Canada . Tom Clausen / Shutterstock
The Great Flood
No , of trend the sauceboat full of animal of every kind was n’t real . However , as is often the case with apocryphal school text , the epic biblical deluge may have at least been establish on an earlier tale . In this example , theEpic of Gilgameshcomes to mind .
In this Mesopotamian saga date back to the seventh 100 BCE , many gods conspired to create a great deluge and destroy the humankind . One of the God , Ea , separate a man key out Utu - napishtim to make a gravy holder to save himself and his kinfolk , along with a whole horde of animals . The story , part of the first great work of lit in human story , unfolds in pretty much the same way as the scriptural equivalent – so is there any evidence that the inundation themselves happened ?
geologic records show that theBlack Sea , northward of Turkey , was starved of its glacier meltwater source towards the end of the last frosty maximum , 11,500 years ago . They melted into the North Sea instead , and the Black Sea ’s water began to dry up . Around the same time , the Mediterranean Basin was replenish with seawater from the Atlantic Ocean . The two were separated by dry land .
Eventually , the Mediterranean Sea overflowed into the Black Sea . It forced the sediment roadblock between the two to open in a clean spectacular manner , and anyone nearby at the clock time would have seen a waterfall200 times the volume of the Niagara Fallsfilling the washstand up so tight that in a undivided day , an arena the same size of Manhattan would have been completely covered doubly over .
Could this be the inspiration for these literary floods ? Perhaps , but if you ’re await for a direct link between a fabled cascade and its real - sprightliness geologic event , look to the origins of the Chinese state .
A thrilling studyrecently confirmedthat the regretful flood of the last 10 millennia took position along the Yellow River at the exact date referenced in ancient textual matter . Not only that , but archaeological evidence uncover at the source also hints that the mythologic first line of monarchs in China – the Xia dynasty – may have really existed .
Myths are often beautiful , breathless narratives . skill , though , is something far more empowering . It does n’t just tell storiesthat are real – it also reveals that fairy tales , just sometimes , are n’t tales at all . They ’re truthful .
Sometimes , fact is stranger than fiction . LanaBrest / Shutterstock
