A lively Youth with a skipping rope springs forth from the cold realms of the distant Cosmos and loops it round the bright ball of the Sun – he is sent (“commanded by a powerful glance”, as our great Pushkin says in his poem The Sack Tree) by Jupiter the god to outline the future trajectory of Jupiter the planet. We see the lifegiving radiation of the Sun spread warmth over the Earth, the vapor rising in clouds above the rocky landscape of an (as yet) uninhabited planet of the Solar system.

In the evening the Sun moves to the West and disappears behind the horizon. When this happened in the ancient times people were often afraid of the falling night – the darkness was also associated with a solar eclipse when the Moon completely or partly obscures the Sun and to them it looked like a fearsome dragon attacking the Light and gobbling it up bit by bit. They fancied an awful battle was taking place in the sky: the avaricious beast tearing apart the body of a good old Sun who is probably putting up a fight but what chance does it stand against such a formidable enemy! If only they could find a way to help the Sun!

Unable to reach up to heaven people would start making a hell of a noise by banging pots and pans, using drums and trumpets and eventually the Sun reappeared. They would then heave a great sigh of relief: “The Dragon is returning the Sun to us!”

These are all parts of a cosmic drama where our beloved Sun is at least one of the main characters.