In a Swedish church record from 1689 a phenomenon in the sky is described. With my very limited understanding it could be a meteorological or an astronomical phenomenon, so here I ask if it could have have an astronomical phenomenon, and what it was in that case.
The place
The observations were made from the village of Fagerhult in Kalmar län in Sweden, at 57°08′55″N 15°39′52″E, in the sky to the North-East.
The time
This was 18 December 1689 (according to the Gregorian calendar – actual date given in the document is Julian 8 December).
It was "around 4 in the afternoon, around sunset". (I think that sunset actually was at about 3:15 PM local time.)
Description
It is described as an elongated cross with the long arm being about 6 times as long as the short arm. I think it means to say that the long arm was vertical, but I'm not sure about that. The cross was shining clearly on the sky, a burning light in the north-east for about an hour. It was almost a clear sky and where the cross was there were no clouds at all.
The account is accompanied by this illustration. It doesn't have the same proportions as I understand the text to say. Maybe the image is better than the text.
(Undoubtely this led to religious ponderings, and that was presumably why this was recorded, but there is actually nothing of that in the note – just this description.)
Was there anything special happening in the sky then that could have to do with this?