Cluin: The spectacle of the stars contributed to the horrific myths that grew up around the periodic nightfalls, but it was the darkness that did in the successive civilizations. Asimov describes a funhouse ride that consisted simply of 15 minutes of total darkness; it had to be shut down because it drove people crazy. In the mythology, the stars sent fire down and burned up the world, but in reality what happened was that the crazed people set fire to everything they could get at to drive back the darkness.