– Orion at bottom right
Richard Hinckley Allen lists many folk names for the Belt of Orion. English ones include:
Jacob's Rod or Jacob's Staff;
Peter's Staff; the Golden
Yard-arm; The L, or
Ell; The Ell and
Yard; the Yard-stick, and the Yard-wand; the
Ellwand;
Our Lady's Wand; the
Magi / the Three Kings;
the Three Marys; or simply the Three Stars. The passage "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of
Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" is found in the
Bible's
Book of Job, and a reference to Orion is found in the
Book of Amos.
Tennyson's poem
The Princess describes Orion's belt as: In China's
Classic of Poetry, the asterism, under the name "
Shen" (参), was paired with
Antares, which is known as "Shang" (商), to be a metaphor for two people who could never unite. This might have stemmed from the observation that both Orion's Belt and Antares rise in the
east and set in the
west, but Antares only rises once Orion's Belt has set and vice versa. The
Malay people refer to the Orion Belt as
Bintang Tiga Beradik (literally "three brother stars"). This constellation, when it is near the western horizon, is often used to indicate the direction of the
qibla, the Islamic direction of prayer for the people of the
Malay Archipelago. Like other stars, the three stars also serve as navigational guides for Malay sailors The three stars of the belt are known in Portugal and South America as
Las Tres Marías in Spanish, and as "As Três Marias" in Portuguese. They also mark the northern night sky when the Sun is at its lowest point, and were a clear marker for ancient timekeeping. In Mexico they are called
Los Tres Reyes Magos. In
Finnish mythology, the Belt of Orion is called
Väinämöisen vyö (
Väinämöinen's Belt). The stars which appear to "hang" off the
belt form an asterism called
Kalevanmiekka (
Kaleva's
sword). In pre-Christian
Scandinavia, the belt was known as
Frigg's
Distaff (
Friggerock) or
Freyja's distaff. Similarly Jacob's Staff and Peter's Staff were European
biblical derived terms, as were the Three Magi, or the Three Kings.
Väinämöinen's Scythe (
Kalevala) and Kalevan Sword are terms from
Finnish mythology. The
Seri people of northwestern Mexico call the three belt stars
Hapj (a name denoting a hunter) which consists of three stars:
Hap (mule deer),
Haamoja (pronghorn), and
Mojet (bighorn sheep).
Hap is in the middle and has been shot by the hunter; its blood has dripped onto
Tiburón Island. The
Māori people of New Zealand refer to the belt as
Tautoru (literally "string of three"), and it is often seen as the stern of the constellation
Te Waka o Rangi (the canoe of
Rangi), which extends to its prow at
Matariki (The
Pleiades). The rising of
Matariki in the dawn sky marks the Māori New Year in late May or early June. The discredited archaeological
Orion correlation theory postulated a connection between the positions of the
Giza pyramids and those of the belt, with the linkage shown to be spurious when placed within the proper historical context. == Gallery ==