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The legends of catastrophe through fire and floods have been found across all ages and all civilizations. Surely there must be some connecting factor for it to be so. Let us take a look at some of these examples.
Legends of Fire and Flood
The earth was at peace. A mild climate enveloped the planet and man had responded well to the beneficence of nature. He had learned to cultivate and harvest his crop. He had domesticated animals to help make his life easier. Various civilizations were beginning to blossom. Then a terrible and all-encompassing catastrophe shook the earth.
The sky lit up with a strange celestial display. Those who saw in this a portent of disaster fled for shelter. Those who watched and waited perished as the sky grew dark and a fearful rain fell upon the earth. In places the rain was red liker blood. In other it was like gravel or hailstones. And it brought-down fire from the sky, too.
Nothing escaped this global holocaust. Men and animals were engulfed. Forests were crushed. Even those who reached the caves were not safe. Darkness gripped the earth and tremendous quakes convulsed the planet.
Mountains were thrown up to the heavens and continents were sucked beneath the seas as the stricken earth rolled and tilted. Hurricane winds lashed the planet’s wretched surface and tidal waves swept across vast stretches of land. Fearful explosions shook the world as molten lava spewed out from the broken crust. A terrible heat hung over the planet and in places even the sea boiled. Some, miraculously, lived through this horrific turmoil. After many long days of darkness the mantle of gloom was lifted from the earth and the survivors lowly began rebuilding their lives.
Did such a Catastrophe Occur?
A catastrophe of such proportions would account for the sinking of a huge containment such as Atlantis-but did such an event ever take place?
If it did, we might expect to find evidence of it in the myths, legends, and folklore of the people who survived. It is a remark able fact that almost all races have a tradition, handed down through countless generations, of a catastrophe that nearly ended the world. Not only are these legends similar in essence, they are also frequently similar in detail, to such an extent that it is tempting to assume they all share a common origin: a terrifying event of global proportions.
Babylon
The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, which is around 4000 years old and records traditions of even earlier age, tells of a dark cloud that rushed at the earth, leaving the land shrivelled by the heat of the flames: “Desolation … stretched to heaven; all that was bright was turned into darkness … Nor could a brother distinguish his brother . . . Six days . . . the hurricane, deluge, and tempest continued sweeping the land . . . and all human life back to its clay was returned.”
Hindu Texts
Form ancient Hindu legend comes an account of the appearance in the sky of “a being shaped like a boar, white and exceedingly small; this being, in the space of an hour, grew to the size of an elephant of the largest size, and remained in the air.” After some time the “boar” suddenly uttered “a sound like the loudest thunder, and the echo reverberated and shook all the quarters of the universe.” This object then become a “Dreadful spectacle”, and “ descended from the region of the air, and plunged head foremost into the water. The whole body of water was convulsed by the motion, began to rise in waves, while the guardian spirit of the sea, being terrified, began to tremble for his domain and cry for mercy”.
Greek Mythology
Hesiod, a Greek poet of the 8th century B.C., writes of a legend involving the earth and the heavens. The story centres around a fiery, serpent like creature, an aerial monster mightier than men and gods alike, that wreaks terrible havoc upon the earth: “Harshly then he thundered, and heavily and terribly the earth re-echoed around; and the broad heaven above, and the sea and streams of ocean, and the abyss of earth. But beneath his immortal feet vast Olympus trembled, as the king uprose and earth groaned beneath. And the heat from both caught the dark-colored sea of the thunder and the lightning, and fire from the monster, the heat arising from the thunderstorm, winds, and burning lightning. And all earth, and heaven, and sea were boiling. . . .”
Iceland
From Iceland we have further evidence of a global catastrophe in the Poetic Edda, a collection of ancient Scandinavian legendary poems of unknown antiquity:
“Mountains dash together,
Heroes go the way to Hel,
And heaven is rent in twain. . . .
The sun grows dark,
The earth sinks into the sea,
The bright stars from heaven vanish;
Fire rages,
Heat blazes,
And high flames play,
Against heaven itself.”
Brazilian Legends
The legends of the Cashinaua, the aborigines of western Brazil, tell of the time when “ the lightnings flashed and the thunders roared terribly and all were afraid. Then the heaven burst and the fragments fell down and killed everything and everybody. Heaven and earth changed places. Nothing that had life was left upon the earth.”
North America
In North America, the Choctaw Indians of Oklahoma have a tradition about the time when “The earth was plunged in darkness for a long time.” A bright light eventually appeared in the north, “but it was mountain-high waves, rapidly coming nearer.”
South Pacific
The Samoan aborigines of the South Pacific have a legend that says: “Then arose smell. . . the smell become smoke, which again became clouds. . . The sea too arose, and in a stupendous catastrophe of nature the land sank into the sea. . . . The new earth (the Samoan islands) arose out of the womb of the last earth.”
The Bible
The Bible, too, contains numerous passages that refer to terrible conflagrations. Psalms 18:7-15 is one example: “Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken. . . The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire. . .Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered. . . .”
These are but a few of the vast number of legends dealing with great cosmic events and cataclysmic destruction on the face of the earth. The ancient records of Egypt, India, and China, the mythology of Greece and Rome, the legends of the Mayas and the Aztecs, the biblical accounts, and those of Norway, Finland, Persia, and Babylon, all tell the same story. So too do the people of widely separated countries, such as the Celts of Britain and the Maoris of New Zealand.
How, When & Why?
What on earth, or in heaven, could have caused such seemingly worldwide catastrophe? The accounts quoted above are taken from two masterly works on the subject, both of which offer the same explanation.
One is Ignatius Donnelly’s Ragnarok: The Age of fire and Gravel, published in 1883, whose title is drawn from the legend of Ragnarok (wrongly translated as “the darkness of the gods” and “the rain of dust”) contained in the Scandinavian Poetic Edda.
The other is Worlds in Collision, which appeared in 1950, and is the most famous of several books by Immanuel Velikovsky, a Russo-Israeli physician whose theories have made him as controversial a character as Donnelly before him. Both men suggest that a comet which came into close proximity with the earth caused terrible events remembered by the ancient peoples of the world. They agree on many points of evidence, such as the myths and legends, and the sinking of Atlantis features in both works. But they take different sands in their search for scientific proof of their theories.
By Nishichawla
http://www.metaphysics-knowledge.com/strange-but-true/legends-of-fire-and-flood.html/