Re: Volcano erupts in Iceland, hundreds evacuated; scienti...

[Guest guest]

Sometime in the past, I'm not sure exactly when, there was an Irish or Celtic legend of going across the sea to what would now be Northeastern France and finding a desert. This wasn't a sand desert like the Sahara, but more a land of the dead: dead trees and plants, no animals or people for a long distance. One theory is that an Icelandic volcano spewed out a vast amount of toxic gas and that said gas was carried to France by the winds. The result was that all life within a good distance of the coast was killed.

I'm not sure if that ever really happened or not because this may be the only story of the event. Nothing in local French lore records the event, but then again, if most of the people died and it was in the Medieval Period when very few people were literate, it might well have gone unrecorded. Still, that doesn't account for oral legends, but all it really takes is one generation to neglect the tales and they are gone forever.

In a message dated 3/21/2010 3:21:56 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

Volcano erupts in Iceland, hundreds evacuated; scientists wary of larger eruption