In the 17th century, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler suggested that sailing ships could also move in the sky. True, this assumption was belated - long before our era, strange sailing ships plowed the air ocean as easily as they swam on water. But who did they belong to and where did they come from?
The geography of the appearance of flying sailboats is very wide - from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia and from the Indians of Alaska to the aborigines of Oceania. But the greatest amount of evidence was collected, naturally, in the most civilized habitats.
In the 5th century BC. Greek triremes, which instilled fear in the enemy at sea, suddenly began to inspire terror from heaven. So, the Greek commander Themistocles, narrating about the Battle of Marathon (according to updated data, it took place on August 12, 490 AD), described “clouds” that suddenly appeared over the battlefield, resembling the warships of the Greeks.
217 BC The Roman government hastily prepares to repel Hannibal's strike in Etruria. As luck would have it, the country is full of alarming predictions and visions that historians have meticulously recorded. In particular, in the markets, stories are passed from mouth to mouth that ships have been seen in the sky …
218 BC According to historical documents, unknown people in white robes appeared more than once in the Amiterno region. In Praenest - flaming lamps from heaven. In Arpi - a shield in the sky. We noticed ghostly ships in the sky. He mentions similar ships in the 1st century. BC. Roman historian Luvius.
The most famous case, described in the old Irish chronicles and concerning "cloud sailing ships", occurred in 956. Then the inhabitants of the small town of Klara gathered in the church of St. Kynarios for Sunday prayer, but it was suddenly interrupted by a loud grinding of metal on stone, coming from the street. The parishioners who poured out of the building were amazed to see that the noise was making … a sea anchor caught on the portico of the church and tied with a rope to a ship soaring in the sky!
Suddenly, from behind the side of the sky ship, a man appeared who jumped down, but did not collapse according to the law of universal gravitation down, but floated through the air, like on water! Having reached the stuck anchor, he froze in indecision, fearing the excited parishioners, and soon turned around and "swam" up. His comrades pulled him aboard, chopped off the rope and flew on …
In 1123, an airship, very similar to a sea vessel, suddenly appeared over London and dropped anchor right in the center of the capital. Some people began to descend from the ship along the rope ladder, but the crowd gathered below grabbed them and, considering them the messengers of the devil, immediately killed them. The crew who remained on the airship immediately cut off the anchor rope and flew away.
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In 1212, the English chronicler Gervas of Tilbury wrote an entertaining and educational work Otia Imperialia for the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV. One of the stories describes a case when peasants in Gravesand (English county of Kent), returning from the church on a cloudy and windy day, noticed an anchor on one of the tombstones, the rope from which stretched up and disappeared into the clouds. Suddenly the rope twitched, a wave ran along it, and soon a sailor emerged from the cloud. He quickly descended the tightrope. Why he descended remained unknown - as soon as the sailor's foot touched the ground, he began to choke and soon died (neither give nor take - he drowned …)
The same thing happened with another sailor, who in 1214 descended to free the anchor, caught on a pile of stones near one of Bristol's churches. As soon as the unfortunate "swam" closer, the crowd of parishioners grabbed him and did not release him until he suffocated. The outcome of the story was predictable - the unknown crew of the ship chopped off the rope and flew away, and a lattice was forged from the anchor, which, by the way, can be admired today.
According to the testimony of the 13th century chronicler Matthew of Paris (which he described in his work "English History"), on the night of January 1, 1245, the inhabitants of the Abbey of Saint Alban saw a large graceful ship in the sky, well lit and "magically colored". Fortunately for the inhabitants of the ship, they did not drop anchor.
Finally, in 1798, in County Mayo, Ireland, many people watched a whole squadron move in the sky. If you look deeper into history, you will immediately notice that not only people or creatures similar to them flew on sky ships, but even gods - this is said in almost all epics, without exception.
For example, in Egyptian mythology, in the morning, the supreme god Amon Ra sailed on a solar boat and moved across the sky all day. In the evening, Ra's boat descended over the horizon, into the underworld, where he fought with the spirits of darkness and defeated the terrible serpent Apop, who wanted to swallow the sun. Having fulfilled and overfulfilled the plan, Ra again directed his boat into the sky, a new day dawned, and everything began anew.
In Sumerian-Akkadian mythology, the god Sin had a second name - "shining heavenly boat". Conceived by the god of air Enlil, who powerfully possessed the goddess of agriculture Ninlil, Sin had the habit of getting into a wonderful boat in the shape of a crescent moon every evening and sailing in it across the sky.
In the mythology of the African Yoruba people, the goddess of fertility of the earth and love, Odua, was sent from heaven by boat and became the progenitor of members of royal families.
There are enough flying ships in fairy tales, and this is especially noticeable in Russians. For example, here is what V. Propp writes about this in the book "Morphology of a Tale", published in 1928:
“The hero is transported, delivered or brought to the location of the object of the search. Usually the object of the search is "in another", "other" kingdom. This kingdom can lie either very far horizontally, or very high or deep vertically. The connection methods can be the same in all cases, but there are specific forms for depths and heights. He flies through the air - on a horse, on a bird, in the form of a bird, on a flying ship, on a flying carpet, on the back of a giant or a spirit, in a devil's carriage, etc."
78 references to the flying ship in fairy tales! This is not so little. Such a miracle of fairy-tale technique is being made in a completely Russian way - take, for example, the fairy tale about the seven Simeons. Then one of the Simeons grabbed an ax, chopped down a huge oak, tyap and blooper - and made a ship that could float on water, under water, and at the same time fly. In the Norwegian epic, in order to make a similar structure called Skidblandir, the efforts of a whole brigade of underground dwarfs-blacksmiths were needed, and the Russian did everything quickly, alone and, which is typical, tyap-blooper …
Evgeny VASILIEV