Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/260

186 next claimed attention, and according to Irving, out of these stars was traced a great winged dragon which was supposed to guard the pole of the heavens. In after years the precession of the equinoxes forced the creature off the pole, and he was said to have been overcome by the stalwart Michael, and thrown into a bottomless pit. One writer says: "His tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth."

The Egyptian hieroglyph for the heavens was a serpent whose scales denoted the stars. When astronomy first began to be cultivated in Chaldea, Draco was the polar constellation.

"It is not known just why this constellation got its fearsome symbol," says Maunder; "the dragon or snake was amongst all ancient nations used to symbolise the powers of evil or darkness or of chaos, but this gives us no explanation why a constellation far from being the least beautiful and conspicuous has been chosen to convey the idea of darkness, still less why such a symbol should have been planted at the very crown of the celestial sphere."

To the early Chaldeans the body of Draco was probably much larger than is now conceded. It surrounded both Bears, and extended downward and in front of Ursa Major.

The Babylonians regarded Draco as a monster personifying primeval chaos—a monster that was finally overcome by a great wind, which was driven with such force into his open jaws that it split him in two.

Brown claims that this constellation is Phœnician in origin, and represents primarily the old serpent, the tempter of Eve in the Garden. Dr. Seiss takes this view of it also.

Mythological accounts of Draco vary considerably. By some this serpent is the guardian of the stars (the golden apples) which hang from the Pole tree in the Garden of Darkness, or Garden in the West, the Garden of Hesperides, near Mount Atlas in Africa.