Friday, September 23, 2011

What is the star constellation Orions mythological history?

Im doing a star project and I need a little background on orion and how he came to be. Thanks.|||It is not very surprising to see such a prominent constellation to have more than one version of a story surrounding it in Greek mythology.








In one version, Artemis, the goddess of hunt and the moon fell in love with him and stopped doing her job of illuminating the sky at night. Her twin brother Apollo, seeing Orion swimming on the sea, dared his sister to strike what only appeared to be a spot on the waves. Not knowing it was Orion, Artemis shot an arrow and killed him. Later, when she found out what she did, she placed his body among the stars. The grief she felt explains why the moon looks so sad at night.





It may be that the naming of the constellation precedes the mythology in this case. It has been suggested that Orion is named from the Akkadian Uru-anna, the light of heaven, the name then passing into Greek mythology. As such, the myth surrounding Orion may derive simply from the relative positions of the constellations around it in the sky.





In some depictions, Orion appears to be composed of three bodies, having three arms [1], two divergent legs, and a small central one, as well as the three bodies being bound at the waist. As such, together with other features of the area in the Zodiac sign of Gemini (i.e. the Milky Way, the deserted area now considered as the constellations Camelopardalis and Lynx, and the constellations Gemini, Auriga, and Canis Major), this may be the origin of the myth of the cattle of Geryon, which forms one of The Twelve Labours of Herakles.





In Finnish mythology the constellation of Orion is called the scythe of V盲in盲m枚inen. The term most likely comes from the fact it can be seen in the sky in early autumn, the time of haymaking...|||..i pretty much know that its the biggest constellation in the night sky. and i'm not even sure if that's correct.

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