Word o' the day

The Japanese word for "solar eclipse" - 日食　（にっしょく） - consists of the characters for "sun" and "eat", thus evoking a sense of the sun being eaten rather than obscured. Well, I thought it was interesting anyway.

If any of my Chinese-speaking friends still read this thing, perhaps you could tell me if the word comes from Chinese? Is it rooted in mythology? Perhaps the ancient Chinese saw an eclipse as the sun being eaten by a huge dragon or something? Hello?

On a completely unrelated note: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/21/lost.parrot.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories