Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/340

244 depict in the starry heavens for all ages, the predominant features of their lives, with special emphasis laid on the manifestations of nature, and the phenomena coincident with the creation of the world.

Classical writers are much in doubt as to the history of the constellation Lepus. It is situated directly south of Orion, and was one of the animals which the giant hunter is said to have delighted in hunting. It is for this reason, so it is said, placed near him among the stars.

Lepus is an inconspicuous constellation, and in these latitudes seems to crouch low on the horizon as if in an endeavour to escape attention.

According to Brown, the Hare is a reduplication of the moon, and as the sun seems to put to flight the moon, and as the solar overcomes the lunar light, so Orion pursues and conquers the Hare. An astonishing amount of folk-lore connects the moon and the Hare. Allen in his Star Names and their Meanings relates much that is of interest in this connection.

Dr. Seiss claims that in the Persian and Egyptian zodiacs the figure represented beneath the foot of Orion is not a Hare but a Serpent. If this is the case, we would have among the constellations the figures of three giants engaged in subduing serpents, surely sufficient to fully emphasise the enmity that instinctively exists between mankind and serpentkind. Schiller regarded Lepus as representing Gideon's Fleece.

Lepus does not rise until Aquila, the Eagle, the bird which loves the sun, is setting, from which fact arose the mythological belief of the hatred existing between the Hare and the Eagle.

As Lepus sets the Crow rises, and this fact accounts for the ancient belief that the Hare detested the voice of the Raven.

The early Arabs sometimes called this constellation "the Chair of the Giant" or "the Throne of Jauzah," owing to its position in the sky close beneath Orion. The Arabs