Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/536

402 Spenser thus describes their setting:

Virgil alludes to them as "the rainy Hyades," and Tennyson in his Ulysses wrote:

So we find them treated consistently, and always identified with a rainy period of weather.

The Romans thought that the Greek name Hyades was derived from, meaning sows, so they called these stars "suculæ" or little sows, and owing to this error much confusion has arisen. Pliny accounts for the title by the fact that the continued rains of the season of the setting of the Hyades made the roads so miry that these stars seemed to delight in dirt like swine. This explanation, however, seems far fetched.

Isidorus claimed that the title "suculæ" was derived from "sucus," meaning moisture, which idea fits in very well with the watery traditions that have always surrounded this group of stars.

Some authorities derived the name of this group from the letter "Y," to which its form, bears a resemblance, though the stars are grouped more in the shape of the letter "V."

The Hyades have also been called "a Torch," "a Triangular Spoon," and "the Little She Camels," the large camel being represented by the star Aldebaran.

The Hindus saw here a temple or waggon, the Chinese, a hand-net, or rabbit-net, but the latter generally called the group " the Star of the Hunter" or "the Announcer of Invasion on the Border." They worshipped these stars as "the General or Ruler of Rain," from at least 1100

According to Grimm the Hyades were regarded as "the Boar Throng" among the Anglo-Saxons.