constellations
 

I konw that Tolkien mentions several constellations in LoTR, but what i was wondering is if there are stories behind any of them. Even such an off hand reference as the Cats of Queen Beruthiel has a story behind it, so what about Menelvagor and other star groups. Are there any recorded stories about such heros?

I'm not sure about Menelvagor, but I do know that there is a bit of a story behind The Sickle of the Valar (what we would call the Big Dipper). Varda put it up there as a warning to Morgoth that he would eventually get his butt kicked by the Valar! She also put up the constellations using the dew of Telperion.

There is a website with information on Middle-earth constellations and a star chart with their names. Enjoy The Stars of Arda!

You might also be interested in reading a fan fiction by Sharkû which tells the story of Menelvagor, the Swordsman constellation: Withgisl.

Look HERE - the third question down on the page for an interesting discussion of the constellations.

[ June 14, 2003: Message edited by: piosenniel ]

In addition to those helpful links, there is some about stars in the first parts of the Silmarillion.

Thanks! And great sites!

Very neat sites guys, thanks. One observation though. They have Middle Earth names for the planets Uranus and Neptune, but that makes little sense as these planets are not visible to the naked eye and were not known to the ancient world.

What would make more sense would be to attach names to the brighter stars in the sky, especially Sirius.

H.C.

That is very cool how they gave names to the planets. Strangly whenever I read the books I never really think of the planets being part of the Middle Earth world.

Same with me Gorwingel. Mixing up planets and stars is a laymans mistake and not one that ancient peoples made. Planets were stars that moved around and it was ancient astrologers that named them for us (at least the visible ones).

So when Tolkien mentions Earendel's Star, I'm not convinced he is talking about Jupiter. It could be Sirius (the brightest star). As well the red star could be Betelgeuse, which is a very bright red star.

When Tolkien said star, he could have meant exactly that, star not planet. Someone like Aragorn who is steeped in ancient lore certainly would have never made the mistake of saying star when he meant planet. Then again, I've never heard that Tolkien was particularly learned in astronomy or astrology either, so mixing up the two could have been a mistake on his part.

It's tough to call.

H.C.

Ëarendil's star is Venus, not Jupiter. It is the last star in the morning, which in European tradition corresponds to Venus (I don't know whether in southern hemisphere Jupiter is the morning star).

And the relationship between the names in the Silmarillion and the planets is given by Christopher Tolkien in the Index of HoME10, 'Morgoth's Ring', from the initials that J.R.R. Tolkien had wrote ubove the names (for example, he wrote 'Jup' above Alkarinque, and 'M' above Karnil) [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Thanks, Amarie. I never realized they were explicitly set out like that.

By the way, Venus is an evening "star" half the time and a morning "star" the other half, as is Mercury. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can be in the sky at any time of night. Which hemisphere you are in is not relevant. That just effects whether the planets tend to be in the southern half of the sky or the northern half.

H.C.

Thank you, too, HCIsland, for your explanation on morning and evening stars [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I didn't know it [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]