15 Highway

Luck Resides There – With That Elusive Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow

By Charles L Harmon

Ever since we were little children we have heard that old saying that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Whether we believed it or not it is always a wonder, and such a beautiful sight to see a rainbow. It’s even better, but much less often, when one can really see or discern where the rainbow ends.

I don’t think we can actually see the end of a rainbow since in most cases there always seems to be something in the way. That might be clouds, trees or vegetation, water, such as a lake or ocean or any other object that just happens to be blocking the end of the rainbow.

This famous custom seems to have arrived in America with the early Irish immigrants. But we don’t know for sure. We do know that in European folklore the elusive end of the rainbow is said to be lucky and that a treasure awaits you there. In Silesia, now a part of Poland, it’s said that angels put the gold there. Not only that, but they say only a naked man can carry it off!

I wonder if anyone took that literally and some man went to find that elusive end of a rainbow stark raving naked! Now in reality, it’s very difficult to really see the end of any rainbow because every rainbow is actually a circle but the horizon cuts off your view. So you really would be lucky to see the end of any rainbow touching the earth.

Back in Great Britain it is lucky just to even see a rainbow. However, you’ll be unlucky if you point to it. That same taboo is part of the folklore of some Native Americans, such as the Dakotas and the Hopi Indians.

Nonetheless, to most people, the sight of a rainbow is a beautiful heavenly event regardless of your beliefs in what it may symbolize or whether that pot of gold is really there. Because it is a natural phenomenon it is easy to understand that over the centuries that man has been around that various beliefs and customs could arise from such a wonder as a rainbow.

In various cultures it has been explained in different ways according to the beliefs of the particular culture. Rainbows have been explained as a snake, a spirit, the bow of a thunder god, but more often than not, it has been explained as a bridge.

In Norse legend, they called it a soul-bridge to the land of the gods. In Austrian and German folklore that same belief showed itself as meaning the rainbow was the bridge that the souls of children take to cross to heaven with guardian angels at their side guiding them.

When I was young I remember in church we were taught that according to the Bible, a rainbow was the sign of God’s promise after the flood that He would never again destroy the world with water. In that sense, one can say that a rainbow is the original symbol – a never can ignore talisman, even a real, supernatural object that protects us.

In the case of the rainbow, that beautiful resulting phenomenon of water reflecting and breaking light into its component colors, protecting us from another deluge of rain, the likes of no one living today has ever seen, the rainbow assures us the rain is over.

Today when we see a rainbow, even high up in the sky where it may be dark and cloudy, we know the rain is over or at the worst, will be over very shortly. It breathes a sigh of relief to see the beauty of a rainbow and know that the storm or rains are over.