Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/556

420 The tradition that one of the stars of this group has been lost or has grown dim is very ancient and almost universal. It is found among nations far removed from each other and has survived to the present day. It is found in Greece, Italy, and Australia, among the Malays in Borneo, and the negroes of the Gold Coast.

Miss Clerke writes: "Variants of the classical story of the 'Lost Pleiad' are still repeated by sable legend-mongers in Victoria, by head-hunters in Borneo, by fetish worshippers amid the mangrove swamps of the Gold Coast. An impression thus widely diffused must either have spread from a common source or originated in an obvious fact; and it is at least possible that the veiled face of the seventh Atlantid may typify a real loss of light in a prehistorically conspicuous star."

Byron thus alludes to this mysterious star:

and Aratos wrote:

There is little doubt that originally one of these stars was brighter than it now appears. Some of the Pleiades are known to be variable, and one of them may have lost lustre at some time far remote, a fact that may account for the tradition of a lost star.

It is interesting to review the myths and legends of the Lost Pleiad and the ingenious suggestions that have been made to account for its apparent loss of brilliancy.

As to which of the seven sisters disappeared mythology is uncertain. According to one story it was Electra, the mother of Dardanus, the founder of Troy, who hid her face in order that she might not see the destruction of that city. The Greeks claimed that the Lost Pleiad was Merope, who marrying a mortal, and feeling disgraced, withdrew from the company of her sisters. Some said the seventh Pleiad