I wonder what stories animals tell about eclipses.
Eclipses are a natural phenomenon; they've been going on for longer than humans were humans, longer than people were people. I can't believe there was any first solar eclipse that plunged humanity into abject terror, prompting mythologies to explain it.
I have to think that in the many millions of years that preceded Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, we (as in we animals with eyes) got familiar with astronomical phenomena, and we carried that familiarity with us. Just like I have to believe that crows have their own favorite constellations. The stories told about stars and eclipses were not desperate grasps at understanding a terrifying universe, they were art.