I WAS BORN on the island of Hinnøy, in the heart of the Northern Lights Belt.

The lifestyle philosophy of Denmark, Sweden and Norway are different, summed up in the Danish word hygge, meaning pleasure and comfort, the Swedish lagom, balance and moderation, and the Norwegian Northern Light, which I introduce to signify endurance, change and mobility.

The distinct design of the Norwegian passport, introduced in 2016, seeks to capture the essence of the national identity. The winning concept, entered by Neue Design Studio in Oslo, highlights the poetry of nature, the beauty and diversity of landscapes and coasts, the variations from south to north of mountains, fjords, winter darkness and Midnight Sun. On my island I can see the Midnight Sun from 22 May until 18 July. The colours and the abstractions of the landscapes are aesthetically subtle. When security staff at the airport puts the passport pages under UV light the daytime landscape changes to night-time and the Northern Lights, the magnetic midnight, appears. Kongespeilet (The King's Mirror), written about 1250, records the presentation of the lights as a natural phenomenon. Fridtjof Nansen, the explorer and diplomat, described the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis above the Arctic Ocean, as an infinite sparkling play of colours that exceeds all that one can dream. Sometimes the view would reach such immensity and intensity that it almost took one's breath away. Myths and mysticism surrounded this billowing light and to some it was God's presence and a way of helping human beings in the Northern part of the country to endure the winter darkness and make the long night lighter.

But the Northern Lights were sometimes seen to carry a deep warning of accidents, even of war. The killing of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the defeat of Attila in 451 AD and the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 were all associated with the appearance of the Northern Lights. On the 25 January 1995 we might have been minutes from war because of the Lights. In cooperation between Oslo University and NASA a Black Brant XII research rocket was launched from Andoy to measure the morning Northern Lights above Northern Norway, Svalbard and Alaska.