Happy February! This month, to celebrate the release of my book Gallery of Myth under the penname TA Page, all our Fun Fact Fridays are focused on constellations. In previous weeks we covered Orion, Cassiopeia, and the Summer Triangle; today’s bonus is all about Corona Borealis.
First things first: this isn’t COVID related. 😉 Corona Borealis is “the Northern Crown.” It’s a little constellation near the Summer Triangle (aka Cygnus, Aquila, and Lyra), and it looks like a wide U. (Or, you know, a little bit like a crown! haha.)
It’s said that Corona Borealis is one of the oldest constellations. It’s usually associated with a myth about King Minos of Crete (that is, the place with the labyrinth and the Minotaur) and his daughter Ariadne. People familiar with the myth of Theseus and the labyrinth know that the hero defeats the minotaur and runs off with Ariadne, but what’s lesser known is that she had another suitor: Dionysus (in Roman, Bacchus), the god of wine. Dionysus is the one who takes Ariadne’s crown and places it in the sky.
My constellation guidebook insists that the crown constellation is “distinct” and “easy to spot,” but I’ve never had much luck myself. 🙂 Maybe that’s why my characters also have a hard time when they’re sent off on an errand to retrieve it. Perhaps that’ll be one of my goals for the summer: find the crown!
Selected Sources
All info this week came from my own experience and from Antonin Rukl’s Constellation Guidebook, published 1996.
