Corvus the Crow - The Raven
Written on July 9, 2007 by Bernadette
Hi All,
Marcia has made some good points about this wonderful Raven in the sky that sits on the back of the Hydra seeking to “steal” the “water” from the chalice – Crater in her comment on my Alkes and Parthenon post . So I thought that I would share a few more points on this lovely little bird.
I have always found this a most interesting constellation and keep it on my list of things to watch. I see it as a set the Raven, the Cup and the Snake a good sky story if ever there was one … There are 28 (visible) stars in this constellation but none of them feature strongly in astrology and I have always felt intuitively that they should. They are of course mythological associated with prophecy ( a subject that astrologers love) and yes, as Marcia points out the stealing of fire – Indeed the Greeks linked Corvus with Apollo (who was associated with Delphi and prophecy) for that reason.
Tantalising five of the stars of Corvus are named. I say tantalising as this is the first obvious step in assuming heavy mythological symbolism which can be translated into a form of “astrological agency” and thus start to use them in fixed star work.
The five stars are Alchiba (4.02 magnitude) – in the beak, Minkar (3.00) in the neck, Kraz (2.56) in the foot ,Algorab (2.95) in the right wing and Gienab (2.59 ) above Algorab in the wing. See the image in this blog. The whole constellation is also quiet small only about 8 degrees across which means that if you held up two of your fingers in the sky you would block it out.
Additionally, even through it is close to the ecliptic no planets move through it. Pluto is the only planet that could reach this celestial latitude but when passing through this part of the sky Pluto moves over the top of Vindemiatrix in Virgo – 16 degrees the other side of the ecliptic.
However, as we well know, a constellation does not need to have the ability to contain a planet, but with this little bird, I must admit as an astrologer I would have loved to see it a “planet holder” ..
Now if you wish to add the stars of Corvus to your paran printouts so you can start to watch for its paran activity you can do this in Starlight by selecting:
Options/Paran Stars then in the next screen you will see that the stars being used by default are a set called “Brady” select the … next to this and this will open up the whole fixed star set selecting editing feature of Starlight – select a “ALL” – this is all the named stars in the sky which you can edit etc. Also in this screen you can select “More” which will give you entrance to all 9000 stars in Starlight’s catalogue – have a play, check your Starlight manual if you are not sure, and you will see how it works.
I have not looked at them for a few years, but when researching them in my general star research work I could not get a clear fix on them - I always try not to assume a meaning but let the meaning emerge through many case studies and biographies, so I simply watch …
So this is just a bit more additional information about one of my favourite parts of the sky
cheers
Bernadette
www.BernadetteBrady.com
If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to our feed
While looking at the visual presented by the Hydra-Crater-Raven constellational grouping, I suddenly focused on what stars lie above the “mouth” of the Crater. They are the stars of Virgo, with their gifts of grain (Spica) and grape (Vinedmiatrix). Is this a picture of the Divine source of the treasure contained within the Crater?
And next, I noticed the placement of the Crater on Hydra’s back. How many legends and myths are there about treasure being guarded by a serpent or dragon? The image Virgo’s divine gifts dropping into the Crater is intuitively satisfying, no?
I’ve often been struck by the number of “serpentine” constellations, the Big Three being: Draco, Serpens and Hydra. Each, I propose, is guardian of a treasure, an important pivot point in the sky: Draco guards the Pole (indeed, its star Thuban was Pole Star circa 2700 BCE); Serpens, (in the hands of Ophiucus), guards the Ecliptic; and Hydra, before precession carried Virgo away, guarded the Summer Solstice.
In the most complex form of the Pacific Northwest Raven story I found, Raven, originally human, turns himself into a snow-white bird (Corvus?) to woo the beautiful daughter (Virgo?!) of a miserly deity known as Grey Eagle (Hydra?). When she takes him home with her he finds that her greedy father is hoarding the Sun, Moon, fresh water and fire (in the Crater?). He decides to sacrifice his chance for true love in order to steal these gifts for his kind. The combination of the Sun’s fire and the firebrand burn his feathers black. I don’t know the dating of this myth, but other myths suggestive of regional volcanic activity have been dated to at least 7500 BCE. So I can’t help but wonder: could this story come from the era when Virgo occupied the Summer Solstice?
I’ve also often asked myself: what is it about serpents? What is it in our ancient, orally-transmitted history that has led to the association of serpents with wisdom, as guardians of celestial treasures? And why do so many cultures’ stories associate them somehow with the Sun? I propose it is because the Sun, well-recognized as a giver of life, draws a serpent in the sky in his annual journey, the figure-8 pattern known today as the analemma. (Displayed on many globes, it shows the sun’s position in the sky at noon on any day of the year.) Do you think the ancient watchers, with all the other detailed data they observed, failed to notice this pattern, drawn on the ground (where serpents live) throughout the course of the year? I bet not!
Marcia
Hi Marcia
Focusing on the guarding of treasure part of your post…
The pole star was considered the greatest treasure of all - the source of life, and Draco - with wings (now Usra minor) did indeed guard this sacred place. He or she was well suited to guard this place as he or she never slept. This is sometimes represented as having a 100 eyes. The never-sleeping Draco is I believe a reference to the simple fact that for most latitudes the dragon will never set. You will find more on this as well as the sources (which are not on the top of my head) in my fixed star book - Under “Draco”.
There are, I believe, many myths which are sky stories and I think Draco with dragons that fly, dragons that do not sleep, dragons that guard treasure and so on have their roots in the holyness of the pole area and its constellations. Wether we can also begin to apply this to the Hydra is another matter, but she is one of the oldest constellations and indeed she is the longest, but of course she does sleep by setting.
In the back of my mind I also think that “Hamlet’s Mill” also talks of this… but this is just a tickle in the back of my mind
bye for now
Bernadette
Ahhh…the Hydra “sleeps” because it can set, does it? (Wonderful image.) In the Raven story, it is while Grey Eagle is sleeps that Raven seizes his chance to steal the treasure.
Marcia
Nice one Marcia… I like it
Bernadette
I was intrigued by your reference, Bernadette, to “Hamlet’s Mill”, so I dug up my copy to browse through again. And there in Chapter 9 (”Amlodhi the Titan and His Spinning Top”) I found the diagrams of the fixed stars in relation to the North Celestial Pole - which is measured from the Equator, and the North Ecliptic Pole - which is measured from the Ecliptic.
What leaped off the star chart is that the true ’still point’ Draco guards - “a point which seemed intrinsically more stable than the pole itself…referred to as the Open Hole in Heaven because in that region there is no star to mark it.” [Santillana & von Dechend: 143] - is actually the pole of the ecliptic! Draco’s star, Thuban, may have _been_ a pole star, but the coils of the dragon surround and protect the heaven’s true center, never touching it. And that true center, being the Pole of the Ecliptic, is therefore related to the Sun and its cycles. So perhaps, even though Serpens and Hydra can be said to “wake” and “sleep” because they can rise and set, all three sky dragons may be said to have some relation to the Sun and its cycles, and may have been thought to guard its key points. And it may be that humanity realized this connection farther back than we think.
A fascinating sidebar: what, I then wondered, about the South Ecliptic Pole? A quick look at the star chart in “Hamlet’s Mill” shows that this point is forever circled and guarded by the great ship Argo. In the Fixed Star Diploma Lecture 7, in addition to calling Canopus, its keel star the Great Navigator as the steering device of the Argo (!), The Heavily Weighing One, (!!) and as a measurer of time (!!!). The image of a weighted point, turning a millwheel, going round and round forever, marking the passage of the aeons, is almost irresistable.
Marcia
Yes, Hamlet’s Mill is a good read
The whole question of the poles of the ecliptic is a interesting one as these were the pole’s first used by Ptolemy to project the stars down to the ecliptic. It was only much later - Ulugh Beg’s time (1394 - 1449) - when the poles of the equator were used. The shift came about with advancements in map making and the need to get a earth-based grid system working.
I might add that when the shift happened astrologers did not complain because, I fear , by that time they were already lost in their flat maps - horoscopes - and no longer caring about the sky. I could go on but I will stop there
cheers
Bernadette
www.bernadettebrady.com