The Pleiades is one of the smallest, enigmatic
and myth-laden star groups. The tiny cluster of inconspicuous stars is
nominally a part of the constellation of Taurus, the Bull, and can be found by
following westwards the line of the three stars of Orion’s Belt in a link
popularly emphasised in myth.
The Pleiades were seven maidens in Greek
myth, turned into stars to save them from the giant Orion, who still chases
them through the sky today. In other cosmologies as far afield as the Native
Australians and the Native Americans of Florida, they are interestingly also
seen as seven maidens.
The sky as seen in North American lore.
The Pleiades are represented in the top right, along with the sun, the moon, and
the stars of Ursa Major.
The Pleiades in fact contain six stars
clearly visible to the naked eye. This suggests the possibility that one star
has reached its natural death and vanished from the star group. Greek legend
states that the maiden Electra, the seventh star, turned her face from the sky
in shame after witnessing the destruction of Troy.
The stars’ importance in myth reflects
into the ritual world. Many sacred buildings including the pyramids of
Teotihuacan in Mexico, the pyramids of Abusir in Egypt, the stones of Callanais
in the Outer Hebrides, and the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia have claimed
alignments to the Pleiades, although this is perhaps dubious and can be explained
as finding what one is looking for. The cave paintings of Lascaux, dating to 15,000BC,
include likely representations of the sky-bull (Taurus) and the Pleiades,
showing that the stars’ importance far predates civilisation as we define it
today.
Taurus and the Pleiades in Lascaux.
The Pleiades are linked to a dark realm
in many sky-lores. Their arrangement, very similar to the stars of Ursa Major
or The Plough which circles or ‘guards’ the Pole Star, has led to their equation
with the counterbalance or opposite of these stars. The Pleiades is likely the
location of Sokar, the dark realm and nemesis of creation discussed last
week, which is at the heart of the story of Broken Skies.
The Pleiades also link to the legends of
a falling star which near destroyed Earth 12,000 years ago. A myth from
Suriname in South America describes a fiery serpent from the Pleaides which
destroyed the earth with fire and flood. In Egyptian lore, the Pleiades was the
foreleg of the bull Taurus, which had been torn from its body and caused devastation
on Earth before being chained in the skies in its present location to stop it
running amok again. This story may have its origin in the ancient Sumerian story
of Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven.
Some Egyptian reliefs of the chained
bull and the bull’s leg.
In Broken Skies, it was a star
falling from Sokar which caused the Thousand Year Winter. Modern astronomy now tells
us that stars and the celestial objects which impact with Earth are entirely
different entities, something the ancients didn’t understand, although the Pleiad
Electra, incidentally, is said to occasionally appear in the form of a comet.
Perhaps the approaching comet or flaming
meteor seemed to come from this region of the sky. Perhaps the missing seventh
star imploded and vanished at this coincidently key time. Perhaps, as
researcher Walter Cruttenden has suggested in Lost Star of Myth and Time,
there is an as-yet undiscovered dark star, the binary pair of the sun, which
periodically approaches the solar system from the direction of the Pleiades
with the expected consequential upheaval.
We are due its return. Perhaps we will
soon find out.
