Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, by Richard Hinckley Allen

This book is exactly what the title promises. Exactly. I really enjoyed it, but not every aspiring astronomer would, for sure. Because the title is so accurate, the content is literally an investigation on every known culture’s connection with a given constellation, along with the key stars in the heavens. Various names, even within a culture, are listed, along with the perception of the constellation by each culture. Remarkably, a great deal of overlap exists, despite time and distance. The author provides some background regarding how certain ideas transferred from culture to culture, but even with this influence, common ground was in place.

I left this book feeling much more well-versed in the mythology documented in the stars, the value that nations placed in certain stars and how they “drew” the shapes, varying from a single star representing the entire idea of the constellation, to constellations that sprawl across the sky, sometimes stealing stars from nearby constellations. 

So many things were interesting that I just made a list:

• What is the inverted year?
• Stars were considered to be living/transmuted souls until 17^th C
• Could Andromeda chained be a sacrifice to “gods” sending deluge, namely Aquarius?
• Groups of three stars considered divine
• Many figures of royalty
• No one really knows who Hercules is, just that he is kneeling on Draco
• Draco universally viewed as a serpentine figure of power (pole star); encompasses/ entraps Ursa Minor
  • Said to be the guardian of the apples of Hesperides—parallel to Genesis? Betrayal? Deceived to deceive?
• Libra is the house of Venus, arranging marriages; equality, weighing relationships/roles
• Several planets said to be in certain signs at the creation of the world (Venus=Libra; Jupiter=big dipper; humans created when Sun was in Taurus, etc.); if we time-lapsed back to when the planets were in these signs, do they overlap? At the same time?
• Conspicuous areas of darkness—foot of cross, around Magellan’s clouds
• Only when the sun was in Scorpio could alchemists turn iron into gold.
• Signs of the zodiac rule geographic regions