It is hard for us to imagine the absolute dark of the premodern night, and the great effect that this had on how people lived and what they believed.
a) One evening this week do everything by candlelight OR its equivalent if you can’t have candles where you live (e.g. a very small flash light, the iphone flashlight app.) Using a computer, TV anything backlit is easy, but what about actually doing things?
b) Grab your large, mean looking friends and go for a walk somewhere really dark, just relying on your minimal light (use a candle in a jar for this – flickering light is ideal). You probably can’t do this around campus because there is a lot of light pollution. Try to go somewhere with as little overhead light as possible (North Hadley, just west of campus is pretty dark). Somewhere with trees is also good.
Now, think about doing this in a world where the forest is unmapped, where you don’t have scientific explanations, where you do not have any way of calling in help, and where there is no police force …. also it’s quite likely you believe in werewolves (a very common belief in the pre-modern world).
Think about the kind of stories people tell on hunting trips. Do you feel more or less like telling those kind of stories out in the dark? What purposes do they serve?
*Use your common sense for this: please take friends and a phone and do not go wandering around in the dark by yourself and don’t go anywhere where you feel unsafe.*
Write it up — about 500 words or so. Describe your walk, your responses, how you imagine it would be in the premodern scenario I named.
Don’t run into Humbaba.