At 18:47 11/08/99 -0700, you wrote:
>I'm waiting with great curiosity to hear from those living in Normandy and
>England to tell us about the eclipse. I suppose in this day of scientific
>enlightenment, there isn't much to say......
> But evidently 1000 years ago when Richard II was Duke of Normandy and
>his nephew (our Walderne/Walter) was perhaps 8 years old, it was quite an
>event. Since it was so close to the millennium and followed the devastation
>of the Crusades, perhaps they believed that the day of reckoning was upon
>them.
>Laurel
One million people descended on poor little Devon (where the Sinclairs
established
thermselves after the Conquest) and, according to my nephew who journeyed from
London for the event, the eclipse (despite a cloudy sky) was spectacular
and well
worth the inconvenience of the traffic jams they encountered on their
return journey.
In London the sky darkened; we switched on the office lights but, within 40
minutes,
we were back to normal.
In the days when fear and superstition ruled, the eclipse would certainly
have been
the harbinger of doom and gloom but, then, we have always had such prophecies -
with or without an eclipse. The lunatic (no pun intended) fringe have
always been
with us.
Niven Sinclair
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