Tanabata

A Japanese Star Story

A long time ago there was a young man who lived in a small village in Japan. As he walked home from working one day he found the most beautiful cloths he had ever seen. He wanted the cloths so he took them from their replace by the pond and started on his way. 

Just then a voice from behind him called "excuse me" he turned around startled to see a beautiful girl "please give me back my robe of feathers" she said "I live in heaven and I just came down to the pond to have a bath. Without my robe feathers I can't go back."The young man was reluctant to give back the robe so he pretended not to know what she meant. "Robe of feathers? I don't have a robe of feathers." Unable to go back to heaven without the robe of feathers the girl had to stay down on earth and. Began to live with the young man. 

The girl was actually a goddess and her name was Tanabata.  Tanabata and the young man got married lived to get her happily. Several years later Tanabata found the robes between two beams in the ceiling. "I knew it. He has been hiding it." She said to herself. She put on the robe and Began to feel like the goddess she once was. 

That evening the young man returned to the house to see Tanabata with the robes on. She began to rise up to heaven and called "if you love me then weave a thousand pairs of straw sandals and bury them around a bamboo tree. If you do this we can see each other again."

The next day the young man began to make the thousand pairs of straw sandals. When he finished, the bamboo tree started to grow high into the sky and the man climbed up the tree. The man and the goddess were overjoyed to see him but Tanabata's father was not impressed that she was in love with a man below. The father made the man watch over a melon field for three days without food or water. The juicy melons were so tempting and on the third day he couldn't bare it any longer and reached for the melon. In that instant the two of them were pulled apart from each other. The two lovers look across the river at each other and became the satrs Altair and Vega. Tanabata's father only lets them meet on the 7th of July once a year. 

The Japanese festival Tanabata or the star festival is celebrated on the 7th our July when each person places a wish on a bamboo tree. 

  

The three enclosures

A Chinese Belief

The stars were organised into three enclosures, The Three Enclosures are separated by "walls", which are visible patterns in the sky. The Three Enclosures are the Purple Forbidden Enclosure, the Supreme Palace Enclosure and the Heavenly Market Enclosure. The Purple Forbidden Enclosure occupies the northernmost area of the night sky, the Chinese believed it was the centre of the of the sky. The Supreme Palace Enclosure lies east and north to the Purple Forbidden Enclosure, while the Heavenly Market Enclosure lies west and south. 

The Chariot

Chinese myth

Wangliang was a chariot rider who always bided by the rules. One day Hsi, a daring hunter asked Wangliang to drive a carriage so he could hunt. When Hsi returned from the hunt empty handed he was unimpressed and told Wangliang the worst charioteer in the world. Offended of this, Wangliang asked to try once more. This time Wangliang broke the rules and they caught 10 birds in one morning. When Hsi asked Wangliang to be his full time charioteer he refused and said “A man cannot straighten others by bending himself.”  

 

The Chinese believed the same chariot appeared in the sky in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The Greeks believed the same cluster of stars were a queen sitting on her throne.    

Cassiopeia

A Greek Myth

An ancient queen of Ethiopia, Cassiopeia was very beautiful. She also was very vein and spent her time bragging about her beauty. She boasted one day that she was more beautiful than the maidens of poseidon, the sea god who, when hearing of this got very angry. Poseidon punished the queen by placing her on her thrown in the heavens to be mocked. Every half night Cassiopeia swings around the North Star upside down and must hold on with her hands so she doesn't fall of. For one so proud of her Beauty it is a most humiliating position. 

Hercules- The 12 labours

Hercules, the Greek hero was commanded by the Delphic Oracle to complete 12 labours. These labours were represented amongst the stars.The Nemean lion (Leo), the hydra and the crab (Hydra and Cancer), Hercules wrestling Apollon (Gemini) and the Cretan Bull (Taurus) are some of the adventures of Hercules 

The Dog and the Fox

A Greek Myth

Laelaps was a magical dog destined to never surrender his chase. The dog was first owned by Zeus who passed it on to Minos, his son. Eventually Cephalus and Procris told it to hunt down the fox Teumessian who was destined never to be caught. To resolve this Zeus placed them among the Canis Major to chase each other across the stars forever. 

ARGO- The Silver Ship

A Greek Myth

A ship of Argonauts, a group of heroes was constructed by Argus and Athena and placed a talking beam on the prow. After the ship returned from the search of the Golden Fleece it was placed among the stars.

One Who Walks All Over The Sky

A myth from the Tsimshian Tribe and Pacific Northwest Coast

Long ago, when the sky was completely dark there was a chief and his two sons, the eldest son, The One Who Walks About Early and the youngest son, One Who Walks All Over The Sky. The sky was so dark at night so the youngest son made a mask (the sun) out of pitch and wood and then lit on fire. Each day the younger sun travels across the sky and sleeps under the horizon. When he snores sparks fly across from the mask and create stars. The eldest brother was jealous so he smeared charcoal and fat on his face (the moon) and made his own path across the sky.

The three Legged Rabbit

From the Western Rocky and Crow Tribes

One day the three legged rabbit made himself a leg of wood. He was afraid that the sun wood set his wooden leg on fire so he decided something must be done. At night he went east to where the sun would rise. The sun was halfway up the rabbit pierced it with an arrow. The rabbit then took the black portion of the eyes and made them into the sky and the white part the clouds. He made the kidneys into the stars, the liver into the moon and the heart into the night. The rabbit, satisfied with what he'd done yelled to the sun "there you will never be to hot again." And that is how the sky was made.

The Hunters and the Bear

A woodland Indian Myth 

One Spring a bear awoke from its Winter nap and wondered about in search of food. Three hunters saw the bear. The first hunter held a bow and arrow the second one held a big pot and the third brought firewood. The three hunters chased the bear through the sky all Summer and eventually the bear was shot in Autumn. The hunters ate the bear in the pot over the fire leaving all the bones alive. While the skeleton of the bear remained visible in the sky, the spirit of the bear crept into the body of another sleeping bear and so the cycle goes every year.