Народное наблюдение «играния Солнца»

In his work "South of the great rite "watch the Sun", published in the journal Ethnography, the scholarly E. R. cites a number of reports about "igranie of the Sun" in the spring (at Easter and the Annunciation) and summer (Ivanov and Petrov days) with all those details, which in this case is written from the words of the people. In conclusion, the author points to the explanation of this phenomenon V. Petrov, in his monograph "Molokama Sonts in Ukranska Narodni urovnyah" making it all disordered imagination by well-known image of a man, also in my interpretation, made in 1913, when I understood this phenomenon as a consequence of abnormal refraction.

Abundant material for the first time, it seems, fully assembled E. R. scholarly and original data provided by it according to its own records, allow more time to return to this issue and to check my explanation.

Most of the data relates the phenomenon of "playing Sun," to two eras — the spring equinox and the summer solstice, which have the above-mentioned holidays. The strumming is characterized by the people, on the one hand, as the rapid changing position of the Sun at his rising thrusts with a return to the old position ("enjoys" "playing", "bathing", "then hide, it will seem like it will turn on, it will go down"), on the other hand, as the distortion of the solar disk at sunrise ("fragmented", "double vision") and, finally, how the color change lights from one V. the other ("it will flash blue, then pink", "plays all sorts of colors: and blue and green and all sorts of", "kalibala a variety of different lights: green, red, and yellow, and different", "it becomes green, then blue, then red").

All these data are collected from different places and, nevertheless, containing the common characteristics of the observed phenomena indicate that we are dealing with real observations of the people and not a disturbed imagination, which could diversify to infinity. Now even more than before, understand the reality of people's observations, since all these records are easily explained by the facts known in atmospheric optics and can be reduced to three phenomena — abnormal refraction, disc deformation and dispersion.

Of abnormal refraction, causing jitter, and distortion of the shape of the solar disk me enough has already been said in the book "Under the arch of the crystal sky" (SPb. 1913, p. 70). Interestingly, deformation of the solar disk at his rising described the author of the Laurentian chronicle under 1230:

"The month of may a 10 day, five 5 weeks Paste necii of Videsh earlier Voshoda the Sun was on three corners like a, and Kovriga, then mnati little snack, like a star, tacos and camber, then again a little vside in your order."

It could not be a solar Eclipse, described later in the same chronicle under 14 may and, indeed, ex this day. And therefore the described phenomenon can only be understood as "the Sun", i.e. the onset of his tremors, the disappearance below the horizon, the deformation of the disk in the form of loaves, triangle and a small point, resembling a star.

Appears to be abnormal refraction, and disc deformation may be accompanied by the phenomenon of the "green ray" originating from the dispersion ("Nature" in 1913, March, article G. A. tihov "Green beam"). This phenomenon is noticed by the people, as can be seen from the above extracts, which is characterized by the mention of green and blue colors. As observations show, the phenomenon of the green ray really is often associated with the phenomenon of deformation of the solar disk, so that the both phenomena are not mutually exclusive ("Green beam"; "Science and technology", 1927, No. 42). One observer green beam says:

"I hold this opinion is that the duration of this phenomenon is very short, and that only thanks to the inertia of the retina, it seems that the green beam is visible for longer. Once happened that in the decisive moment, something distracted my attention, while my companion did not take her eyes off the horizon. Suddenly he exclaimed, "Look!". And it turned out that he was still a relatively long time to see a green ray, while I have not been able to notice. While in the eye of my companion, the green beam still remained for a long time and it seemed to him that he sees it, it lacked the exciting the optic nerve irritation".

This explanation is critical in understanding those people's will, which is "playing Sun," see "only the righteous, the sinful, the same can not see", as the author notes in his study. At the time of the year, the summer solstice is the most favorable age for the green beam, since the Sun at this time, long walks and dates and therefore duration of the phenomenon of the green ray maximum. This is the era of holidays Ivanov and Petrov day, when people are "waiting for the Sun".

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»