Saved by the Eclipse

by Cal Meacham

One of the happiest literary moments of my youth was finding Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court at a local department store. I knew a bit about his books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and wasn’t much impressed. But Connecticut Yankee looked to be something very different. It was. I took my newly-bought copy over to the lunch counter, ordered a Coke, and started to read. I was delighted.

Twain’s book is certainly one of the first, if not actually the first novel of time travel into the past. He tapped into a rich vein, because it allowed him to explore the age-old dream of “If I only Knew Then What I Know Now” on a very large scale. Hank Morgan, his Connecticut Yankee, goes back to the time of King Arthur with all the benefits of 19th century science and engineering. It would not have been that impressive a book had Twain simply had his hero triumph over his adversaries through superior knowledge. Morgan must use his wits, as well. The form also gives Twain an opportunity to comment upon the beliefs and mores of the past and, best of all, to criticize his 19th Century representative, as well.

So I am a Yankee of the Yankees - and practical; yes, and nearly barren of sentiment, I suppose - or poetry, in other words.

(It must have tickled Samuel L. Clemens, the Missourian, to write that in his adopted Connecticut.) Rarely is the first attempt at a new genre so successful. Later attempts at the time-travelling inventor are often uninspired, just wish-fulfillment with little thought or introspection.

Hank Morgan is the ideal person to be sent into such a situation:

My father was a blacksmith, my uncle was a horse doctor, and I was both, along at first. Then I went over to the great arms factory and learned my real trade; learned all there was to it; learned to make everything; guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all sorts of labor-saving machinery. Why, I could make anything a body wanted - anything in the world, it didn’t make any difference what; and if there wasn’t any quick new-fangled way to make a thing, I could invent one - and do it as easy as rolling off a log.

In the course of the book, Morgan does practically re-invent the nineteenth century in the bosom of the sixth, right down to telephones and electricity. But at he start of the book, he finds himself mysteriously sent back to the time of King Arthur without anything to help him. Worse, he is captured by one of the King’s knights, stripped, and thrown into prison. Without any materials or allies, how was Morgan to establish himself?

But Morgan has an ace in the hole. Presented with the evidence of his senses that he is in the sixth century (despite what his common sense tells him about the impossibility of time travel), he typically finds a way to determine if he really is in Arthur’s court.

But all of a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew that the only eclipse of the sun in the first half of the sixth century occurred o the twenty-first of June, A.D. 528 O.S., and began at three minutes after twelve noon. I also knew that no total eclipse of the sun was due in what to me was the present year - i.e., 1879….Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now shoved he whole problem clear out of my mind till its appointed day and hour should come…

Unfortunately, Morgan finds himself condemned to death, so the issue becomes very live one. Upon seeing how completely and sincerely the people believe in the powers of Merlin he Magician, Morgan declares himself a magician, as well, and one more powerful than Merlin. He threatens the kingdom with a calamity if hey attempt to execute him.:

You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind, in the nick of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played a eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my chance. I could play it myself, now; and it wouldn’t be any plagiarism, either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand years ahead of those parties….

“ This is the 20th, then?”

“The 20th - yes.”

“And I am to be burned alive tomorrow.” The boy shuddered.

“At what hour?”

“At high noon.”

“Now then, I will tell you what to say.” I paused, and stood over that cowering lad a whole minute in awful silence; then in a voice deep, measured, charged with doom, I began, and rose by dramatically graded stages to my colossal climax, which I delivered in as sublime and noble a way as ever I did such a thing in my life; “Go back and tell the king that at that hour I will smother the whole world in the dead blackness of midnight; I will blot out he sun, and he shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack of light and warmth, and the peoples of the earth shall famish and die, to the last man!”

Morgan is taken to the stake, on (as he thinks) the wrong day:

…the monk raised his hands above my head, and his eyes toward the blue sky, and began some words in Latin; in this attitude he droned on and on, a little while, and then stopped. I waited two or three moments: then looked up; he was standing petrified. With a common impulse the multitude rose slowly up and stared into the sky. I followed their eyes; as sure as guns, there was my eclipse beginning! The life went boiling back into my veins; I was a new man! The rim of black spread slowly into the sun’s disk, my heart beat higher and higher, and still the assemblage and the priest stared into the sky, motionless. I knew that this gaze would be turned upon me, next. When it was, I was ready. I was in one of the most grand attitudes I ever struck, with my arm stretched up pointing to the sun. It was a noble effect. You could see the shudder sweep the mass like a wave. Two shouts rang out, one close upon the heels of the other:

“Apply the torch!”

“I forbid it!”

The one was from Merlin, the other from the king. Merlin started from his place - to apply the torch himself, I judged. I said:

“Stay where you re. If any man moves - even the king - before I give him leave, I will blast him with thunder, I will consume him with lightnings!”

The king agrees to make Morgan his executive, with a revenue of one per cent of what Morgan can arrange over what the state currently receives. To kill time until the eclipse is over, he demands to be clothed.

It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I struggled with those awkward sixth-century clothes. It got to be pitch dark, at last, and the multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold uncanny night breezes fan through the place and see the stars come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the eclipse was total, and I was very glad of it, but everybody else was in misery; which was quite natural. I said:

“The king, by his silence, still stands by his terms.”

Then I lifted up my hands - stood just so a moment - then I said, with the most awful solemnity: “Let the enchantment dissolve and pass harmlessly away!”

There was no response, for a moment, in that deep darkness and that graveyard hush. But when the silver rim of the sun pushed itself out a moment or two later, the assemblage broke loose with a vast shout and came pouring down like a deluge to smother me with blessings and gratitude…

Twain had a true sense of the dramatic, and has Morgan play his part to the hilt, milking it of every bit of drama. It’s effective for the subjects of King Arthur’s court, and no less so for his modern-day readers. Still and all, despite Morgan’s fame as a plausible mechanical know-it-all, it stretches credulity that he should just happen to know precisely when an eclipse is supposed to take place in the sixth century. Not merely the year, which would be impressive enough, but the day and the time as well. Not only that - it’s revealed later that he also just happens to know the date and time of a lunar eclipse as well:

There was going to be an eclipse of the moon, and I knew the date and hour, but it was too far away. Two years. I would have given a good deal for license to hurry it up and use it now when there was a big market for it. It seemed a great pity to have it wasted so, and come lagging along at a time when a body wouldn’t have any use for it as like as not.

He was also incredibly lucky that the eclipse was to happen so soon.

Were I Morgan, I’d be worried that someone might have dropped a day or two n the long count of years, too. In fact, both Morgan and Twain were aware of the potential difficulty - that’s what the “O.S.” in the date means. It refers to “Old Style”, the Julian calendar that Britain continued to use until (surprisingly) the 18th century. They lost 17 days in the process of switching to the Gregorian calendar most of the rest of Europe was using at the time. (There were riots at which people demanded their 17 days back.)

But, granting the unlikelihood of Morgan’s eidetic memory, Twain pulled off the scenes well and believably. The Man Who Knew Eclipses took advantage of that knowledge to take advantage of the Natives Who Didn’t. Twain didn’t create the incident out of whole cloth. As he acknowledges, it had been done before.

It as Columbus, not Cortez, who, as far as we know, was the first person to pull this trick. (The first person to predict eclipses, according to the ancient Greeks, was Thales of Miletus. Thales was also said to have used his predicting powers - due to his knowledge of science - to take advantage of the ignorant. But there’s no record of him pulling the eclipse stunt.) It was 1504, and Columbus was making his fifth voyage to the New World. They landed in Jamaica, their ships in terrible shape, and half the crew mutinied, stealing the food reserves and taking off into the country. The loyalists stayed with Columbus at the harbor of Santa Gloria and they bartered for food with the native Taino indians. After a while, the Taino refused to bring more food. - the Spaniards consumed too much and they had saturated he local market for trade goods. Some say they were fearful of retribution from the mutineers. In any event, Columbus found himself in a desperate situation. Fortunately, he had a copy of Ephemerides of Regiomontanus, published at Nuremburg before 1500, and listing eclipses around the world for the next thirty years. There was to be a total lunar eclipse in only three days, on February 29, 1504. Columbus sent a messenger and summoned the caciques and chief men to a conference aboard his ship, the Capitana. Through an interpreter, he made a short speech, as impressive in its way as Morgan’s.

He was a Christian, he said, and worshipped a God who rewarded the faithful and punished the wicked. This God had already punished the mutineers, keeping them from escaping the island. Shortly, he would punish the Taino as well. The moon would rise bloody and enflamed, unless they agreed to continue supplying Columbus and his men.

That night, the eclipse occurred, and the Taino reportedly rushed to Columbus, settlement, bringing provisions with them and pleading for the curse to be removed. Columbus retired to his cabin and waited until totality, then emerged and said that he had prayed to his God, asking for forgiveness for the natives. As the eclipse broke, they left relieved and convinced.

Actually as Samuel Eliot Morrison notes, Columbus really spent his time in his cabin measuring the time and duration of the eclipse, so that he could obtain an accurate determination of the longitude of Jamaica.

You would think that Twain’s having said that his story was inspired by the example of Columbus would have settled things . Clearly the basic story and events were the same - just change the eclipse to a more dramatic solar eclipse and make the language more dramatic. Furthermore, the story of Columbus’ eclipse trick was well-known. It was reported in Washington Irving’s The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828), which Twain certainly owned at that time. But critics have sought other influences on Twain.

For instance, Emerson Bennett was an extremely popular author of romance novels. His 1849 novel The Prairie Flower, or Adventures in the Far West, features a scene in which the heroine, at the mercy of villainous Indian chief, uses the same ruse to escape. She recalls from an almanac that an eclipse is due, invokes it, and refuses to lift the curse until she is set free. Not only was the novel popular, but it inspired a play of the same name, produced at the New York Bowery Theater for the 1870-71 season. And Twain was known to have been in New York December 10-17, 1870.

It’s possible, but not proven, or necessary - all the elements Twain needed were present in the original Columbus story. But it does mark the first fictional case of Rescue by Eclipse that I’m aware of. It’s interesting to note that Bennett was a Philadelphia resident and lifelong Easterner. According to this site: http://users.wi.net/~census/lesson5.html the true author of The Prairie Flower was on Sidney Walter Moss, an Oregon City hotel keeper, who was able to give the novel a true Western flavor. But of this dispute I have no opinion.

Another case of Eclipse Rescue preceded Twain’s. H. Rider Haggard’s novel of African adventure, King Solomon’s Mines, appeared in 1885. It was the first of a series of adventure novels set in Africa, many of them starring the hero of this one, Allan Quartermaine. Quartermaine and his companions go in search of the fabled mines of King Solomon, and in the country of the mines find that they must impress the locals as gods in order to survive. Their guns and the possession of a dental plate (“He can take out his teeth!”) impress the local yokels. But to save a couple of lives, and to advance their cause, they have to produce a Sign of their powers.

“I think have it,” said Good, exultingly….Now look here, you fellows, isn’t tomorrow the fourth of June?”

We had kept a careful note of the days, so were able to answer that it was.

“Very good; then here we have it - ‘4 June, total eclipse of he sun commences at 11:15 Greenwich time, visible in these islands, Africa , etc.’ There’s a sign for you. Tell them that you will darken the sun tomorrow.”

And so, of course, they do, in appropriately dramatic fashion. They point to the rising sun out the door of a hut and ask the native leaders if any mere mortal can put out the sun. Being told that no one can, they say that they will do so, starting an hour after noon, and keeping the sun dark for an hour.

“…If we do this thing will it satisfy ye?”

Yea, my lords,” answered the old chief with a smile, which was reflect on the faces of his companions; “if ye do this thing we will be satisfied indeed.”

Clearly the king doesn’t believe. At the appointed hour, of course, he gets his comeuppance:

I glanced up at the sun, and, to my intense joy and relief, saw that we had made no mistake. On the edge of its brilliant surface was a faint rim of shadow.

I lifted my hand solemnly toward the sky, an example which Sir Henry and Good followed, and quoted a line or two of the “Ingoldsby Legends” at it in the most impressive tones I could command. Sir Henry followed suit with a verse out of he Old testament, while Good addressed the king of day in a volume of the most classical bad language that he could think of. …

A groan of terror rose from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with fear, others threw themselves upon their knees and cried out. As for the king, he sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin. Only Gagool (the Witch Woman) kept her courage.

“It will pass,” she cried; “I have seen the like before; no man can put out the sun; lose not heart; sit still - the shadow will pass.”

Heroes were saved from destruction by an eclipse in a rather more direct way in Herge’s serialized French comic strip “Tintin”. In the story “The Prisoners of the Sun” (The sequel to “The Seven Crystal Balls”), Tintin , Professor Calculus, and Captain Haddock find themselves captured my modern-day Incans and place on a funeral pyre that is to be set off by focussed sun beams at an hour of their own choosing. Knowing of a coming eclipse, they choose the hour of the eclipse for their immolation. (The story began its serialization in the weekly magazine Le Soir on December 16, 1943. Publication through the war was understandably irregular, with the climax occurring in the September 26, 1946 issue of Tintin. )

There are many other, more recent examples. I mentioned the scenario to my wife, and she recalled seeing it before, although not in any of the works listed above. It’s been used over and over again because its such a simple and satisfying literary device - the heroes are saved from almost certain doom by a bit of scientific cleverness. A cleverness, moreover, that’s easily understood by the audience. It’s not as if they’re being saved by some difficult bit of science, like a knowledge of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, or a piece of chemistry, or even knowledge of Medieval Latin. It’s something taught in our elementary schools, a piece of knowledge we an feel superior about having, because we stand on the shoulders of giants like Thales and Newton. And the natives, of course, being mere savages, don’t really know about things like eclipses.

There’s more than a bit of condescension, and maybe racism in this attitude. You won’t have a proper understanding of people if you assume that they’re stupid. Several ancient civilizations have been able to observe and predict eclipses. Gerald Hawkins claimed in Stonehenge Decoded that Stonehenge could be used to predict eclipses, and demonstrates how to in the book.

Even without the predictive ability, eclipses themselves are not so rare that you encounter one or fewer in a lifetime. I’ve never encountered a total solar eclipse, but I have lived through half a dozen partial eclipses. And lunar eclipses happen far, far more frequently. The picture of benighted savages pounding on drums in mortal fear to drive away the sun- or moon-devouring monster (such as I have in one of my childhood books on astronomy) is, I submit, a simplistic and biased portrait. Real people have encountered eclipses before, and know that they don’t last. As with many magic tricks, it’s all in the selling of the miracle, the showmanship. Without it, the locals might possibly remember the real nature of eclipses (as Gagool does in the excerpt from King Solomon’s Mines). So the buildup is intense, drawing attention to the normally regular properties of the sun.

This phenomenon of science-savvy heroes taking advantage of their scientific knowledge and dressing it up as supernatural powers or even religion has become a cliché of science fiction. John Campbell used it in All, and Heinlein adapted the plot (evidently from a description, and maybe a few notes, since he names of the “gods” are the same as in All) for The Day After Tomorrow (AKA Sixth Column). Asimov used it in his Foundation series, where the Encyclopdeia-producing Foundation is forced to become a religion in order to survive. I’ve often felt that, with the heavyweights of SF taking advantage of this idea, it’ not surprising that L. Ron Hubbard should turn to the idea of trying to make it a practical operation with his Scientology organization.

But the idea is a limited one. It’s been used too often, and there’s not much new to be wrung from it. And its depiction of the locals as stupid and clueless is pretty demeaning. One student review f King Solomon’s Mines I found on the internet suggested that the non-PC work was pretty badly written, and ought to be forgotten.

It is, therefore, with some satisfaction that I report one other case of eclipse prediction that turns all of these cliches upon their heads. In this case it’s the “ignorant savages” who show their knowledge, and the “superior” white man - in the form of the U.S. Government - that’s shown up.

Tecumseh (“Shooting Star”) was a Shawnee, one of eight children. He was born in 1768 near Springfield, Ohio, and became a warrior and a learned chief. One of his brothers was Lauliwisakau (“Loud Mouth”), who started out as a dissolute character, but became a mystic, changing his name to Tenskwatawa (“He Who Opens the Door”). His names being difficult to Western ears he’s usually called “The Shawnee Prophet”. He turned away from liquor and European ways and declared himself a healer and leader.

Thomas Jefferson, the president, did not view Tenskwatawa as a major threat. In fact, he thought it would be difficult for The Prophet to win converts, and that such converts as he returned to a savage state would be less harmful that way.

The governor of Indiana territory was future president William Henry Harrison, who had a high regard for Tecumseh’s abilities, and wanted to quell any uprising. In 1806 he wrote a letter to the Indians, asking the Prophet to prove his exalted status. “Ask of him to cause the Sun to stand still, the Moon to alter its course, the rivers to cease to flow or the dead to rise from their graves. If he does these things, you may then believe that he was sent from God.”

Upon receiving the message, Tenskwatawa and the leaders retired to their tents. They emerged, and said that in fifty days, on June 16, 1806, the Sun would be darkened in a cloudless sky, and the stars would come out in daytime.

Of course, the eclipse did happen, although it was not total where Tenskwatawa was at the time of its occurrence, near Fort Greenville. But it was very nearly total. Curiously, it was a total eclipse at the Sandusky River, where he’d made the prediction.

There has been a lot of speculation about how Tenskwatawa knew about the eclipse - did he know from reading almanacs, or was he given the information by British agents, trying to stir up trouble? Did he learn from parties of astronomers, looking for a spot to observe the eclipse from? Certainly Tecumseh was literate, and could read it for himself. Dare I even suggest that the Shawnee were capable of eclipse prediction unaided?

In any event, the eclipse was immensely powerful propaganda in favor of the Shawnee, and a large force was gathered together and headquartered at Tippecanoe in Indiana, in 1808. Three years later Harrison lead a thousand troops against the town, pointedly while Tecumseh was away. Tenskwatawa lead the Indians against Harrison, and was killed. His death was all the more significant in that it reduced his prophetic status, and the movement broke up. And Harrison ran for resident, years later, under the banner of “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.”