The stories behind the signs!
Visit Scholar Minor at http://www.ursaminorcreations.com!
Say hello at ursaminorcontact@gmail.com!
Overhead forest photo by Spencer Watson via Unsplash.
Book spine photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash.
Music: "Forest Walk" by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Bibliography:
Allen, Richard Hinckley. Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning. Dover, 1963.
The Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Leo." Encyclopaedia Britannica. June 15, 2021. Accessed August 4, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/place/Leo-constellation
McClure, Bruce. "Cancer? Here's Your Constellation." EarthSky. March 29, 2021. Accessed August 4, 2021. https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/cancer-heres-your-constellation/
McClure, Bruce. "Leo? Here's Your Constellation." EarthSky. April 13, 2021. Accessed August 4, 2021. https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/leo-heres-your-constellation/
McClure, Bruce. "Virgo? Here's Your Constellation." EarthSky. May 27, 2021. Accessed August 4, 2021. https://earthsky.org/constellations/virgo-heres-your-constellation/
"The Nemean Lion." The Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University. Accessed August 4, 2021. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/lion.html
Hello friends, and welcome to part 2 of Scholar Minor’s Myths of the Zodiac!
This week we’ll be learning about the mythology behind three more constellations of the Zodiac - Cancer, Leo, and Virgo. I highly recommend checking out Part 1 of this series if you haven’t already, episode 13. In addition to taking a look at the constellations Aries, Gemini, and Taurus, we also examined how the signs move and how the wobble of the earth has changed - and continues to change - their positions in the sky.
If your birthday falls between June 21st and September 23rd, you were most likely born under Cancer, Leo, or Virgo. While a lot of folks are pretty familiar with the personality traits traditionally attributed to signs of the Zodiac, we’ll be learning instead about the myths behind the constellations themselves.
Thanks for listening, friends, as always.
Cancer is one of the faintest of the constellations in the Zodiac, and although it's a summer sign - it's nearly impossible to see during the summer because of the sun's glare. Just before dawn in early fall, you may be able to find it between Gemini and Leo. It's also easier to see during the new moon in early Springtime as long as you're in a place without significant light pollution.
If you find Cancer in the sky, you may see what appears to be a tiny cloud. This cloud is actually the Beehive star cluster - one of the closest to our solar system. If you check out the Beehive cluster through binoculars or a telescope, you'll be able to see that this patch is made up of countless little stars.
Cancer the Crab has its roots in the mythology of legendary hero, Heracles - aka Hercules. Driven to madness by the goddess Hera, Heracles killed his wife Megara and their children - and in penance and to prove his heroism, he was instructed by Apollo's oracle to serve king Eurystheus of Mycenae. At Eurystheus’ command, Heracles was to complete 12 seemingly impossible labors: including slaying the Lernaean Hydra.
The Hydra, child of the monsters Typhon and Echidna, had many heads - just like his brother, Cerberus the many-headed dog we’ve discussed before. The Hydra was a water monster, serpentine in appearance, and later versions of the myth tell us that Hydra’s heads could regenerate when cut off.
Hercules was tasked with killing the monstrous Hydra. During the confrontation, the Goddess Hera sent a crab to pinch Heracles’ foot and throw him off his game. Heracles was unperturbed by this annoyance and promptly crushed the crab - and, for the record, successfully defeated the Hydra. Despite being an unsuccessful diversion, Hera immortalized the crab in the stars as the constellation Cancer.
The constellation Cancer has had a longtime association with the moon and, along with Scorpio and Pisces, is considered a water sign. The moon connection comes from early astrological beliefs that the moon was located in Cancer during the creation of the world.
Unlike its celestial neighbor, Cancer, the constellation Leo is one of the easiest to see in the sky. It's bright, main star - pun intended - is called Regulus - and tracing backward from Regulus forms the curve of Leo the Lion's mane. Leo is visible until late July or early August, after which point it begins to be obscured from view by the sunset.
You can find Leo in the sky using the easily-identifiable Ursa Major or "Big Dipper'' constellation. The two outer stars of the Big Dipper's bowl point toward Polaris and Ursa Minor one direction, and to Leo the other. Within the Leo constellation, with use of a telescope, you can see multiple galaxies - and the November Leonids meteor shower originates in Leo.
Identification of Leo as an important celestial pattern is even older than the Greeks and Romans. The ancient Egyptians saw that this constellation was in the sky during the height of the summer, and this association with summer and the sun would continue - eventually it became one of the sun-ruled signs of the Zodiac. Interestingly, Leo the Lion was identified as a lion by many distinct cultures for a long time. The ancient Persians, Turks, Syrians, Babylonians, and others all saw a lion in Leo. In Greek and Roman myth, Leo represents the Nemean Lion - another of Heracles' labors.
The defeat of the Nemean Lion was the first of Heracles' tasks. The formidable beast, another child of the monster Echidna, was said to have impenetrable fur. After tracking down the beast, Heracles discovered that the Lion’s hide could not be broken with weapons, arrows or blades proving useless. His only choice was to defeat the creature with his bare hands - which he did, trapping the lion in its lair and strangling it.
Heracles found himself unable to skin the beast following its defeat, because, again, blades were useless. The Goddess Athena, in her wisdom, advised Heracles to remove the Nemean Lion’s pelt using one of its own claws. This was successful and Heracles is often depicted with the Nemean lion’s pelt over his shoulders.
Our third sign this episode is Virgo, coincidentally my own birth sign. The Virgo constellation is the largest of all those in the zodiac, without an easily identifiable pattern. I have a great deal of trouble finding Virgo myself without the help of a handy constellation mapping app - as mentioned in our last zodiac episode, I highly recommend these apps if you're wanting to learn more about the night sky!
Virgo contains the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, visible to us through telescopes despite being around 65 million light years away, and home to thousands of other galaxies. Keep an eye out for a blue-ish white star named Spica while you're on the hunt for the Virgo constellation - the brightest star in its pattern.
The mythology of Virgo is familiar - she is Persephone, daughter of Demeter - who’s story we’ve encountered before on Scholar Minor. After consuming a single pomegranate seed while in the Underworld, Persephone was eternally bound to the world of the dead and its ruler, Hades. Hades took Persephone to live with him in the Underworld, and Persephone’s mother was livid.
Demeter was the goddess of agriculture, and therefore very important to the human residents of the world. When her daughter was stolen from her, Demeter refused to take care of her duties as the goddess of the harvest and Zeus, King of the Gods, noticed the resulting chaos unfolding amongst the starving humans. He demanded that Hades and Demeter make a compromise.
Persephone would spend part of the year in the Land of the Dead with Hades, and return to the company of her mother above ground for the remaining parts of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Virgo constellation is not visible in the sky from the late Fall to early Spring. Appropriately this coincides with the myth of Persephone, as the winter is when she resides with Hades in the Underworld - and when Demeter refuses to take care of mankind's’ crops in protest of her daughter’s absence. Many illustrations of the Virgo constellation depict her holding a sheaf of grain - a reference to her connection to the seasons, to harvest, and to her mother Demeter.
If you’d like to hear some more about Persephone and Demeter, we discussed their myth in more detail in episode 17 “Three Awesome Goddesses”. I highly recommend you check it out!
Thanks for joining me again, folks, and as always I am impossibly grateful for all of you. You can find my references in the show notes, as well as a link to my website - www.ursaminorcreations.com - and my email.
Feel free to send a message along if you have a particular topic you’d like to hear about, or just to say hello - I love hearing from you! Scholar Minor is also on YouTube, so don’t forget to like and subscribe. I have some fun new content planned for the coming months after my medical business is out of the way.
Be safe, friends, take care, and I’ll talk to you again next Friday.