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* The ancient Indian epic ''[[Ramayana]]'' features a semi-demonic king whose emotions seem to effect the whole world's climate. When he becomes lovestruck, the seasons change rapidly, and time itself stops temporarily.
* Chinese emperors believed themselves to be responsible for the well-being of the land in varying degrees ("The Mandate of Heaven," which even modern communists try not to upset too much- ever see a government official slack off when a Chinese natural disaster strikes?), and thus instituted a number of rituals in which they'd attempt to appease the heavens; some of them apparently have been heard to directly appeal to the gods to [[Take Me Instead!|punish them instead]] during natural disasters. People who worked for the emperor were often [[Genre Savvy]] about this, sending memorials to the Imperial palace about bad omens like solar eclipses in various places (which have been calculated by modern scientists to be impossible at that time and place) simply to politely tell the Emperor that his policies were unpopular in (X) Province.
* River based kingdoms in general(like Egypt and China above)had states whose power came from the ability to predict weather and flooding patterns and organize hydraulic works. The ability to do so would surely have looked like preternatural powers to peasants especially as what we would consider mundane science and engineering would often be combined with attempts at sorcery.
* [[Oedipus the King]], who kills his father, marries his mother and becomes the king of Thebes. This moral stain—even though he has no idea that ''they'' are his parents—brings year-long famine to the land.
* [[Older Than Dirt]]: A variation appears in ''[[Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld|Inannas Descent to The Netherworld]]''. The Mesopotamian fertility goddess Inanna mourned her husband Dumuzi each year when he died. Her grief (and guilt for killing him) transformed the earth into a parched wasteland where nothing could grow. Only the annual return of Dumuzi could cheer her up.
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