Tales of the constellations

In the sky there appeared the constellation of the good Sculptor. This constellation reminds people that good is stronger than evil and will always triumph.

Berenice’s Hair, the Northern Crown, the Southern Crown and the Herdsman

Coma Berenices, Corona Borealis, Corona Austrina and Bootes

In a village stood a castle where there lived a King and Queen. The King spent little time at home but was always out hunting or feasting. The Queen, however, preferred to read books and she knew a great many things. Whenever a dispute arose in the village the people went to the Queen for advice and she always decided things fairly.

One day in the Kingdom, a competition was announced to find the best person at telling stories and reciting poems.

The King was not at home, as usual, but the Queen did go to the competition. She won the prize for the best story-teller, which made her very happy.

The King returned from the hunt and discovered that the Queen had gone to the competition without consulting him. He was very angry as he did not think it proper for a Queen to do such a thing.

The King leapt onto his horse and rushed off to the competition. When he found the Queen, he shouted at her in front of everyone. He then tore the crown from her head in a rage, threw it away and said that she was no longer fit to be a Queen.

The Queen burst into tears because she was so unhappy.

Suddenly the Queen’s crown rose up into the sky and began to sparkle. As the people watched in astonishment, the Queen also rose up high into the sky and began to shine.

In the evening, the King could see the Queen with her crown from the window of his castle. She was sitting and combing her long silky hair.

The King noticed for the first time that she had such beautiful hair. His soul stirred but he still felt angry with the Queen.

Each evening, whichever window the King looked out of, he could see his wife with her crown high up in the sky.

Then one day, the King realised how badly he had treated the Queen and that his life was empty without her. He hurled his crown out of the window and said: “What kind of King have I become? If only the Queen would forgive me, if only I could be with her again, I would be content to be a simple herdsman!”

The crown that he had thrown down also rose up into the heavens and began to shine, but on the opposite side of the sky to that of the Queen. Another constellation appeared, known as the Herdsman.

No-one ever saw the king again.

The Furnace and the Microscope

Fornax and Microscopium

In a village there lived two brothers, Tin and Dokar. Each day Tin would go to the seashore as he liked to look at the waves and watch the clouds rush across the sky. He had an instrument with lenses that could magnify objects – a microscope. He went everywhere with this microscope and would examine grains of sand and different insects. Most of all he liked to study flowers.

Each morning, after the dew had settled, Tin would go into the fields to greet the dawn and spend hours admiring each dewdrop.

Dokar did not have a microscope and he did not go into the fields to greet the dawn. Dokar busied himself with the housework. He swept the floors of the house, wiped away the dust, cleaned the ashes from the fireplace and prepared dinner.

People said that Dokar did all the work in the house and Tin did nothing. Tin was not very popular in the village. Dokar paid no attention to the unkind words of the villagers; he loved his brother and tried to help him as much as he could.

Dokar believed that each person should be allowed to do whatever he wished: if Tin liked to spend the whole day in the fields with the microscope, then so be it. Maybe Tin would make some kind of discovery? But Dokar was not interested in flowers or insects and that was why he did the housework. Each to their own.

One day in the village, a competition was announced to find who could build the best furnace. Dokar won the competition. Everyone congratulated him and said that Tin was so lazy that he had not even taken part in the competition. Dokar was angry at these words, but did not know what to do to change the people’s opinion of his brother.

Suddenly the furnace that Dokar had built began to shake and rose up into the sky, becoming a constellation. Tin’s microscope also rose into the sky and became another constellation.

These two constellations shine in the heavens to remind people that to look through a microscope and make discoveries is no less important than to build a furnace. All kinds of work should be valued.

The Giraffe and the Goat

Camelopardalis and Capricornus

In a village there lived a girl called Ista and she had a horse and a goat.

The horse carried out all the heavy work on the farm; bringing water from the well, dragging stones to build a house and carrying wood from the forest.

More than anything else, the horse was afraid of wolves in the forest and always dreamed: “If only I had horns like a goat or even just one horn, I wouldn’t need to be afraid of wolves as I could butt them”.

The goat grazed in the meadow and she was also afraid that wolves would leap out of the forest and kill her. She also had a dream: “If only I had a really long neck, I could see the wolves coming from far off and run away”.

One day, when the horse was carrying wood out of the forest, a fairy appeared on the path. Everyone knows that a fairy can grant any wish. The horse begged the fairy to give him a horn, so that he could protect himself against the wolves. The wish was granted.

The very same day the goat also met the fairy; she gave the goat a very long neck.

Both the goat and the horse were very happy, but when they returned home Ista became frightened; she gave a cry and ran away.

Filled with grief, the goat and the horse rose up into the sky. There they turned into the constellations of the Goat and the Giraffe.

The constellations shine brightly to remind people that it is better for them to be themselves.

The Water Snake, the Chisel and the Crane

Hydrus, Caelum and Grus

On the Earth there lived a sculptor by the name of Atur who made magnificent statues out of granite. The stone flowers that he carved seemed almost alive. It was as if a simple chisel became a magic wand in Atur’s hands.

One day Atur decided to carve a statue of the goddess of harmony, Balikarna.

When the work was finished it seemed as though nothing could be better than this statue. It was as if Balikarna, and harmony itself, had come to life.

The land that Atur lived in was ruled over by a King. The King had a daughter called Gafra. She was beautiful but wicked, arrogant and selfish.

One day the King and the Princess were travelling around the kingdom and they visited the village where the sculptor lived.

The Princess saw the statue of Balikarna and became very angry. She cried: “How can it be? There is a statue of Balikarna, but not of me, yet I am the most beautiful woman in the whole world!”

Gafra ordered the statue of Balikarna to be destroyed. Her soldiers set about carrying out the order.

However, when the statue of Balikarna was thrown to the ground and smashed to pieces, the Princess turned into a water snake.

Atur took his chisel and ran off and no-one ever saw him again.

In the sky there appeared the constellations of the Water Snake, the Chisel and the Crane.

People said that the sculptor Atur had turned into a crane. Every night he flies over the destroyed statue of Balikarna and croons mournfully about the lost harmony.

The Twins

Gemini

On an island there was a village where the people lived a quiet and peaceful life.

One day a terrible storm arose over the sea, the worst storm that anyone had ever seen. The waves were so huge that they seemed to reach right up to the sky. The storm lasted for three days and three nights.

The storm was at its fiercest on the third night. None of the villagers could sleep that night and they waited in terror to see what would happen next.

Then, when there was a flash of lightning, someone noticed a small boat out on the raging sea. It was lifted up on the crest of a wave and seemed to fall to the very bottom of the sea. The people could do nothing to save it.

The next morning the storm died down and the sky brightened. The people found the boat washed up on the shore. Everyone was surprised to find two small children in the boat – a girl and a boy who were twins.

The islanders thought that a huge wave must have washed them out of the sky. Where else could they have come from? So the people called the twins the ‘children of the sky’.

Time passed and the people still thought of the new arrivals as ‘children of the sky’. The twins showed a great mastery of all the sciences and they were especially knowledgeable about the Sun and the Moon. They could also predict someone’s fate using the stars and their predictions always came true.

The children of the sky were very good and always helped the people in any way they could. The twins taught the islanders about floods, when to harvest their crops and the dates of the festivals.

Rumours about the unusual powers of the children of the sky spread to the ruler of the island. He was just making preparations for war and he wished to know its outcome, so he turned to the twins for help.

The twins studied the stars all night and in the morning they predicted that the war would end badly. The ruler of the island was very angry and ordered the twins to be imprisoned in a tower so guards were sent to find them. When the guards arrived in the village where the children of the sky lived, their house was found to be empty.

The twins had disappeared and no-one ever saw them again.

But one day, someone looked up into the sky and saw the twins there. All the people in the village ran out of their houses and looked up as well. Indeed, in the sky shone the constellation of the good Twins. They smiled and waved to the villagers, who were rather surprised but also very happy.

Now, when the villagers need good advice they turn to the sky; the stars and the twins always help them.

The Serpent Bearer and the Lizard

Ophiuchus and Lacerta

Near a village in the hills there stood two castles.

One castle was made from precious stones and the other from gold.

In the first castle lived a good fairy who was a guardian of stones; in the second lived a wicked fairy who was a guardian of metals.

The good fairy was called Ita and the wicked fairy was called Ruta.

Ita liked to turn into a multi-coloured lizard and watch from afar as the people in the nearby village went about their everyday lives. Sometimes the fairy would take the form of a wanderer and go from house to house. The kind people would invite her to stay the night. In the morning she would disappear and the people would find a handful of precious stones on their doorstep.

The wicked fairy Ruta would also occasionally leave her castle to observe the lives of the people. To do this she would turn into a snake or an evil wanderer, whom no-one would let into their house.

In the village lived a man by the name of Kel. He was greedy and more than anything else in the world, he loved gold and precious stones. He found out that the stone-fairy was very rich and decided to go to her to demand a share of her riches.

In the evening Kel set off for the hills to lie in wait for Ita. In the darkness he took a wrong turning and found himself at the castle of the wicked fairy Ruta. At midnight Ruta came out of her castle, turned into a snake and saw that a man was lying in wait for her.

Ruta was happy that someone needed her. With joy the fairy moved towards Kel and coiled herself around his arms. However hard Kel tried, he could not free himself from the snake. What could he do? Then Kel thought that if he jumped high enough the snake would release him. So he jumped as high as he could and found himself in the sky, but the snake was still wound around his arms.

The good fairy Ita, out of curiosity, turned into a lizard and ran up into the sky to find out what the greedy Kel would do with the wicked snake.

But it turned out that Kel was unable to free himself from the snake and the lizard still watches them to this day. Nothing good came of Kel’s greed, except for the constellations of the Serpent Bearer and the Lizard that shine in the heavens.

The Flying Fish and the Goldfish

Volans and Dorado

On an island there lived two sisters, Una and Sutar. They were Princesses and lived in a palace. The sisters were very different.

Una had golden hair and blue eyes; for days on end she would walk and play with her friends. During her walks she would talk about new clothes and jewellery. More than anything else in the world, Una loved being rich.

Sutar had dark hair and dark eyes. She spent all her time sitting at home with a book in her hands. Sutar had many different scientific instruments, even a telescope since she enjoyed looking at the stars. Sutar believed that the meaning of life lay not in riches, but in spirituality.

The sisters often argued about the meaning of life and many other things.

One day their father brought Una and Sutar a large diamond. Una immediately demanded that he make her a ring or a brooch out of this magnificent stone. Sutar objected to this; she thought that the stone should be used for a new scientific instrument to observe the heavens in more detail.

Примечания

1

Megaliths are stone structures found across the whole European shore of the Atlantic, from Portugal to the Faroe Islands. They consist of menhirs (individual standing stones set vertically), rows of menhirs, stone circles and various stone complexes (Stonehenge and Avebury in England, Carnac in France, Newgrange in Ireland and others). Often, various drawings and symbols are carved into the stones. Megaliths date from the 5th to 2nd millennium B.C. It is believed that megalithic complexes are ancient observatories.

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