Missing Sun
The missing sun is a theme in the myths of many cultures, sometimes including the themes of imprisonment, exile, or death. The missing sun is often used to explain various natural phenomena, including the disappearance of the sun at night, shorter days during the winter, and solar eclipses.
Some other tales are similar, such as the Sumerian story of the goddess Inanna's descent into the underworld. These may have parallel themes, but do not fit in this motif unless they concern a solar deity.
In late Egyptian mythology, Ra passes through Duat (the underworld) every night. Apep has to be defeated in the darkness hours for Ra and his solar barge to emerge in the east each morning.
In Japanese mythology, the sun goddess Amaterasu is startled by the behavior of her brother Susanoo and hides in a cave, plunging the world into darkness until she is willing to emerge. It has been suggested that the story is allegorical, symbolising that the sun goddess hiding in a cave is a metaphor for the sun exhibiting quiet periods such as the Maunder Minimum. This allegory has been used in literature such as Masks of the Lost Kings.
In Norse mythology, the gods Odin and Tyr both have attributes of a sky father, and they are doomed to be devoured by wolves (Fenrir and Garm, respectively) at Ragnarok. Sól, the Norse sun goddess, will be devoured by the wolf Skoll.
In Hindu astronomy, Rahu and Ketu ate the sun or moon to cause lunars and solar eclipses. In later, more scientific years, their names were given to the Lunar nodes.
Read more about this topic: Solar Deity
Famous quotes containing the words missing and/or sun:
“What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It’s a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)
“Heaven has its business and earth has its business: those are two separate things. Heaven, that’s the angels’ pasture; they are happy; they don’t have to fret about food and drink. And you can be sure that they have black angels to do the heavy work like laundering the clouds or sweeping the rain and cleaning the sun after a storm, while the white angels sing like nightingales all day long or blow in those little trumpets like they show in the pictures we see in church.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)