Now, I wish I could say these were my shoes and that these photos are mine, but I can’t. I found this photograph online, overcome with a deep sense of jealousy!
It’s not often that the Northern Lights are visible from my country and never in my nearly (ahem!) 60 years have I had the excitement to see them with my own eyes.
But the people living in the north of Greece were lucky enough to see the sky and everything under it seemingly on fire with this vibrant red color on the night of November 5! People posted them on social media from Salonica, from Serres and other parts in the north of my country.
There were talks beforehand that Aurora Borealis might be visible from Corfu αs well, but I found no evidence to attest to that.
However, while searching, I bumped into a very interesting superstition on the island of Corfu concerning the Northern Lights. A Corfiot posted on their Facebook page an old text recording this phenomenon as being visible from Corfu back in 1530. According to that text, the phenomenon was visible for two consecutive nights and it colored the sea, making it look like ‘a basin of blood’.
Three years later, in 1533, a great famine plagued Corfu and according to the locals, St Spyridon, the protector of the island, appeared in an apparition before the crew of a boat. It was filled to the brims with wheat, sailing past the island, headed for Italy. The saint commanded them to change course and dock in Corfu and this is what they did, awestruck by the sight. This miracle is celebrated to this day as the wheat fed the starving Corfiots. Back in that time of utter ignorance, the Corfiots, mystified by the earlier sign from the heavens, connected the two events.
This superstition was solidified in their psyche when in 1940, the Northern Lights amazed the Corfiots in the sky once again, and then WWII began! Furthermore, the bombs falling from the sky during the air raids didn’t hurt the city but kept falling miraculously into the sea instead…
To this day, the Corfiots see the Northern Lights as an omen for either an impending intervention from St Spyridon or a catastrophic event.
Which means I am not sure if I am deflated or relieved that they didn’t get to see it this year, LOL!
I am Greek, so I don’t really celebrate Halloween, but I live with a Brit who likes a little something to mark the day 🙂
So, once again, I went for a pumpkin meal to do just that.
And this year, I made the best Hokkaido pumpkin soup ever. The boiled chestnuts and the cheesepies went down very well with it.
Get the recipe here
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