Canis Major – and the ancient Greek legend between Procris and Cephalus

Canis Major - hound in the night sky

Constellation of Canis Major, one of the 88 modern constellations but also included in the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy's 48 constellations, can be seen from south-east of Orion. The most prominent star shinning in pale blue is the alpha star of Canis Major - the famous Sirius.
Canis Major and the nearby constellation of Canis Minor were said to be hounds of the Orion.

Myth of origin

Let's talk about the myth behind this hound. Here is the brief of this legend.
Long time ago, a woman Procris owned two treasures from the king of Crete: the hound Laelaps capable of capturing every prey aiming at, and the spear capable of killing everything facing. She gave both treasures to her husbands, Cephalus.
One day, Cephalus went to hunt for the fox attacking the village with the hound and the spear. When they found the fox, Laelaps immediately chased it while Cephalus threw the spear towards the fox. However, here come a contraction. The fox would be either killed by Laelaps or the spear. If it was killed by Laelaps, the spear can no longer killed the fox. If the spear killed it, the Laelaps could not capture the fox.
To solve this contraction, Zeus decided to make both the hound and spear to become constellations. The hound Laelaps - had become Canis Major.
From here, let’s talk about a more detailed version of the legend, the tale behind it.
The daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, Procris became the wife of Cephalus. One day, Eos, goddess of dawn seized Cephalus while he was hunting. Cephalus was reluctant to betray Procris, and Eos returned him to Procris.
However, Eos tried to show Cephalus how easily Procris could be seduced by someone else, and convinced Cephalus to return home in disguise of a completely different guy and gave a test for his wife, he seduced Procris with a huge amount of money. He disclosed his real identity as Cephalus when Procris agreed to sleep with a stranger for money.
Afterwards, Procris escaped to the place of King Minos. King Minos wanted sleeping with her but there is a problem.Wife of King of Minos, Pāsiphaë has cast a magic to her husband, causing all the women slept with him to give birth to snakes and scopions instead which will kill the women.
Procris obtained a miracle herb from the witch Circe, and the magic lost its effect. Procris slept with King Minos and in return, King Minos gave the miracle hound Laelaps and spear to her as gift. She returned to Cephalus, giving him both treasure items, and they reunited again. The part about how the hound became a constellation was same as in the brief version.

Another version of the legend

Here is an alternative version of the legend. The change was only related to the story between Procris and Cephalus. If you were looking for tale about the hound, you can skip it. In this version, Procris was more likely to be a victim.
Cephalus had been married with Eos, goddess of dawn, but finally he decided to left her and returning to his motherland. Then, he married with Procris, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus. The later part of the story was more or less same as the original myth, except for the epilogue. After Procris left due to anger to Cephalus’s test, Cephalus was regretted for what he had done and went finding Procris who had escaped into the forests. He brought with him the mighty spear, and he mistaken his wife to be a beast in the forest. He threw out the spear and killed Procris by mistake.

Trio of suns: Riger Kenttaurus

Riger Kenttaurus (or called Alpha Centuri) is the brightest star in the constellation of Centuri viewed from the solar system. and the third brightest star in the night from Earth. For a long period of time, it was misunderstood to be one star or dazzling double star. But with the improvement in instruments for astronomy, it was finally revealed that Riger Kenttaurus was made up of three stars, which is quite rare among the stars discovered in the universe. In most case, larger object(s) will engulf smaller ones in the early age, and it is a rare case that three stars of different masses can continue to exist and maintain a balance among them.
In comparing the absolute brightness of stars, Riger Kenttaurus is not ranked very high. The main reason of why it is the third brightest in the night sky is that it is the star closest to our solar system (around 4.2 lightyear).
Being the closest star (sun) to us away from the solar system, Riger Kenttaurus is widely used in SF stories, novels and movies around the world.

Monoseus: Constellation of the legendary unicorn

Monoseus - another legend of unicorn

Constellation of Monoseus is situated between two hounds in the night sky: Canis Major and Canis Minor. Its existence was defined by the astronomer Petrus Plancius in 16the century.
Comparing to its shinning and obvious neighbors, Monoseus mainly consisted of stars which are less obvious and hard to find. The presence of a rose nebula makes it even less prominent.

Legends of Monoseus from different sources

Monoseus is a Greek word. In English, this legend creature is generally known as Unicorn.
Unicorn is a legendary creature beginning from Greek legends with an outlook similar to a horse but with a horn in the center of its forehead. It has a ferocious nature and can only be calm by the hug of a virgin. Besides the horn, unicorn also has several characteristics like a tail of a lion, beard of a male goat, and eyes in ocean blue color. Its horn is said to have magical power, and can purify all toxic and polluted waters to be clear and harmless again, showing its symbolic deep relationship with power of water.
Unicorn has existed in Old testament bible and part of it has been inherited by the bulls nowadays.
There were also some more detailed descriptions about unicorn as real organism, the most famous one was from Ctesias, a doctor and historian in Greece in around 400 B.C., when he was working as a doctor for King Artaxerxes II of Persia. He said he had come across unicorn in his trip to India. However, no description or proof can be found that he had actually been there and it was still a mystery whether his foundings is true or not.
Unicorn was also worshipped by ancient Celt before the spread of Christianity in Northern Africa. Some historians claimed the different tales and myths of Unicorn in various cultures are indeed combination and mixing of various legends, a by product of development of cultures.

Star of longetivity: Canopus

Canopus (Carina α)

Canopus is the second brightest star throughout the day, only slightly dimmer than Sirius.

Canopus in different cultures

In Egyptian legend, when ancient Egypt was destroyed by huge flooding, the gods Isis and Osiris were on a huge argo (the so called Noah's Ark mentioned in the bible of Christianity).
According to the myth of Babylonians, the argo was created by the God Ea after realizing the desperate and fear from the humans.
The description and story of this argo vary for differnt civilizations and culture towards different gods/godesses.
For the ancient greeks, the vessel was the place where lots of heros grouped together sailing across the oceans. Canopus was shinning at the Argo's tail.

Canopus has the meaning of the hermit for giving guidance, and is the brightest star in the constellation of Argos. In the view from earth, it is the 2nd brightest star in night sky just slightly dimmer than Sirius. This star is visible in Southern hemisphere of Earth, but can only be seen by southern part of Northern hemisphere. For example, it is not visible to northern part of China.

In ancient China, it paid an important part in legends as it represents the old hermit of the south pole. The star is regarded to be symbol of longetivity, peace and fortune. Appearance of Canopus is regarded to be a peace and forture sign (which is a contrary to Sirius). However, the star is situated too south and it can only be seen from southern part of China (In ancient China, these regions are mostly uncultivated regions). It is impossible to observe it from Northern China (the centre of China in ancient times). This characteristic is one of the reasons why it is called "Antarctic Canopus (i.e. "Nanjixianweng") in ancient China.

The image of Antarctic Canopus (Nanjixianweng) is an old hermit with high forehead, long elbow, holding hands with a large peach. It symbolise peace, harmony and statue of Nanjixianweng is one of the precious present for birthday for the riches.

Canopus is in the brightest star in Carina which can be seen in southern hemisphere. It is believed the English name (Canopus) is named after the Greek army expedition to Troy. Comparing to Sirius, Canopus is much far away from Earth and it is difficult to calculate its distance form the Earth. Most astronomers (before modern space age) suggested it is situated 1,200 light years away. However, with the modern telescopes, it is noted that Canopus is actually 700 lightyears from us, and it is the largest star within a radius of 700 lightyears from us.