A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a nearly continuous spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto falling rain. It is a multicoloured arc with red on the outside and violet on the inside. The full sequence of colours is most commonly cited as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, though it is important to note that this is an inconsistent list; all primary and secondary colours are present in some form, but only one tertiary colour. It is commonly thought that indigo ...
The rainbow has also been used in more contemporary settings, such as the song "Over the Rainbow" in the musical film The Wizard of Oz, and in selling Lucky Charms by alluding heavily to leprechaun mythology.
One of the poems of William Wordsworth goes:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
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A traditional way of recalling each of the seven colours of the rainbow in sequence is by using the mnemonic "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain", where the first letter of each word corresponds to the first letter of each colour. The mnemonic alludes to the defeat of Richard III by Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field. In York, an alternative version is taught that goes "Rowntrees Of York Gave Best In Value". Another, less obvious, thou ...
