From a modern scientific perspective, such traditional accounts no longer sound preposterous. Our growing knowledge of devastating events in recent earth history substantiates the possibility that prehistoric people witnessed a violent and prolonged display of high-energy auroras. This colourful book is an edited slideshow intended as an accessible 'appetiser' for a forthcoming monograph about traditions of the world axis.

By contrast, the mythological phenomenon loosely identified as the axis mundi dates back to the earliest stages of civilisation and is described by the most diverse cultures in remarkably similar terms. It can be explained by reference to a once visible entity in the sky, with a complex, evolving morphology and a possible link to the zenith or the pole. The prototype may have been the zodiacal light or, as recent insights in plasma physics indicate, an enhanced aurora formed in prehistoric times.