Did you know that the northern lights are twice as likely to occur in September and March as they are at other times of the year?
The northern lights are caused in part by increased activity in the earth's magnetic field. This field extends from the earth's interior out into space where it meets the solar wind, the stream of charged particles coming from the sun that exerts a pressure on our magnetic field.
The pressure of the solar wind is not constant, and the earth's magnetic field is not uniform, so when the conditions are just right, the solar wind encounters a vulnerable region of the magnetic field, and then we get these waving curtains of flaming light. This kind of encounter usually happens around the times of Equinox, in September and March each year.
Now this being the storytellers night sky, here's an Icelandic tale with the northern lights hidden in it!
There's a beautiful princess who has to weave three beautiful robes in just three days so she can break the spell and secure a happily ever after for everyone in the story. The princess and her brother are hiding away from their evil stepmother, and the wrong bride is being made ready for marriage to the neighboring prince. The prince demands that his bride weave three robes ~ one blue, one red, and one green, each more beautiful than the one before. This is to prove the bride's identity, and she can't do it, because she's not the true princess. But the true princess comes to her aid, and "just when the shining green silk of the third robe was ready, she caught the sun's rays and the moon's beams on the point of her needle and wove them into a pattern such as no man had ever seen. On the third morning, just as she was putting the last stitch into the last flower, the prince came in. The princess jumped up quickly, and tried to get past him, but the folds of the green silk were wrapped around her, and she was caught..." just like the earth gets caught in the Aurora!
It's a beautiful tale to share while you're waiting for the Aurora this month, and you can find it by following this link: http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/142/the-crimson-fairy-book/5198/the-three-robes/