According to Russian folklore, the northern lights were associated with the fire dragon (“Ognenniy Zmey”), which came to seduce women when their husbands were gone. It turns out that the Russians were wrong. There is no fire, or other form of heat, involved in watching the aurora. To the contrary, it's always been downright cold when I've seen it. This is, of course, why it's now generally accepted among astrophysicists that the phenomenon is caused by normal dragons, not fire-breathing ones.

This image is from my recent journey to northern Alaska. While taking this photo, I quickly found out why the foreground trees were coated in ice. The scene unfolded at the top of a mountain ridge where it was not only cold, but windy, and within minutes a thin coat of ice began to form on both me and all of my photographic equipment. Not a great place to be a tree, even though the views were spectacular.