In 1968, flying to New Albany in an ancient bucket, lightning storms caused Kennedy's campaign plane to shake, rattle and roll.
In Estonia the prophet Elijah is considered to be the successor to Ukko, the ancient spirit of lightning.
The ancient Greeks believed that lightning bolts sprang from the rage of Zeus in his home on Olympus.
It climaxes in one terrific section where zig-zagging bolts of music nail them to the spot, as if they were terrified ancients quailing before the lightning of the gods.
When Vaclav's mother finally tells him what she saw that day at Lena's house, "His shouts become screams, and his screams become lightning tearing apart ancient trees, and the lightning becomes continents ripping apart," and on and on.
The thought of a barn fire is an ancient fear, whether caused by lightning, equipment, spontaneous combustion or carelessness.
The cliffs expose a layer of glassy, bubble-filled slabs up to 2 meters across; called escorias locally and first reported in 1865, these rocks had been attributed to everything from lightning strikes to ancient human-tended fires.
In ancient times, the drama of thunder and lightning so clearly went beyond human scale that the phenomenon was handed wholesale to the gods.
Whether an ancient tree dies in an explosion of lightning or begins to drop its branches with the burdens of age, something wonderful happens.
And, just because he's got style, Yoda uses a lightning bolt to destroy the ancient tree and (supposedly) the Jedi texts with it anyway.
