Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Rainbow Bridge in Mythology
The Rainbow Bridge in Mythology
The Rainbow Bridge in Mythology
n Norse mythology, the rainbow is the road between the worlds of gods and men. It is a substantial thing:
Horses are ridden over it, their hooves clattering; Heimdall, the gods’ watchman, even built his house upon
it. At Ragnarok, the "doom of the gods," when the fire ogres and frost giants storm up it to destroy the gods’
home, the rainbow bridge will break.To think of a rainbow as the "bridge to the divine" is common
throughout world mythology. Raymond L. Lee Jr. and Alistair B. Fraser, authors of The Rainbow Bridge:
Rainbows in Art, Myth, and Science, found the concept in Zulu, Navaho, Hawaiian, Japanese, Cambodian,
Greek, Australian Aborigine, Chumash, and Hopi myths, as well as the Norse. "The apparently huge size of
a rainbow seen in distant rain," they write, "makes the notion of a bridge to heaven’s heights easily
understandable."
The early artists were not really at fault. The full explanation of how a rainbow "works" wasn’t available
until James Clerk Maxwell presented his theory of optics in 1862. Lee and Fraser trace the history of our
understanding of rainbows, asserting that "the rainbow bridge links the sciences to their past." The
Rainbow Bridge takes us from Aristotle through Avicenna to Theodoric of Freiburg, who "plausibly
(although not quite correctly)" used refraction and reflection within a raindrop to explain the rainbow’s
colors; then through the "farfetched model" of the greatest geometer of the 15th century and the
"maunderings" of the father of electricity in the 16th; to "Kepler’s rainbow muddle," Descartes
"groundbreaking essay," and Newton’s "truly satisfactory account of the rainbow’s colors"; until finally we
reach Maxwell’s full explanation.
ow, with the rainbow’s optical puzzle solved, the discrepancy between real rainbows and artists’ renditions
can no longer be called an accident. "Indulging in fantasy for its own sake is one of life’s great pleasures,
and rainbow fantasies are no exception," Lee and Fraser write. "However, being unable to distinguish
between rainbow fact and fantasy is no asset." From some of the many illustrations presented in The
Rainbow Bridge, from postcards and advertisements to realistic landscapes, it seems that ability is not
widespread. "Our goal here is not to cast artists in the role of scientists," the authors continue, "but rather to
emphasize the shared problems of observation that the two groups face — and how they often arrive at very
different answers."
The rainbow can never be seen obliquely, for instance, as many artists have painted it, because it has no
physical form. It is a mirage, "a mosaic image of sunlit rain," centered on a point directly opposite the sun
(which also means the sun can never be seen peeking out from behind a rainbow, as some advertisements
have it). Because the relationship of sun to rainbow is fixed, all shadows in a painting must converge on the
rainbow’s center. To see a rainbow, you must stand with the sun directly behind you and the rain before
you. The rainbow will appear around the head of your own shadow.
Which brings us back to mythology: The connection between observer and rainbow, Lee and Fraser note,
"has several interesting implications. In particular, it means that the rainbow is a terribly personal
phenomenon. No two people see exactly the same rainbow because each sees it around the head of his or
her own shadow." Which also means that you can’t run away from it or catch it — although people try,
including Fraser once when driving through Canada. "Although he traveled down the highway quite
rapidly," the authors write, "his rainbow kept pace with his shadow as both raced through the Saskatchewan
wheat fields."
That the rainbow does so "probably explains many cultures’ fear" of it. While Westerners may think first of
finding the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end, "in a threatening world something that cannot be outrun is an
unwelcome sight." As Lee and Fraser write, "You may not have thought about the dangers of pointing at the
rainbow, but rest assured that much of humanity has. In places as widely separated as Hungary, China,
Mexico, and Gabon, pointing (or even looking) at a rainbow is a foolhardy act." The consequences include
"getting jaundice, losing an eye, being struck by lightning, or simply disappearing" — perhaps being taken
over the rainbow bridge to the home of the gods.