Sky & Telescope - March 2025 - 45

Stories in the Stars by Stephen James O'Meara
Foxy Canis
Minor
A little canine makes a big
fuss in the sky.
I
f you've ever owned a little dog, you
know how cute and cunning they
can be. It's that way, too, with the
constellation Canis Minor, the Lesser
Dog, at least mythologically speaking.
Originally, only two stars comprised
the quaint constellation: Procyon, its
+0.4-magnitude Alpha (α) star, and
2.9-magnitude Gomeisa, its Beta (β)
star. Ask any skywatcher what these
stars represent, and sure as " kibbles is
kibbles, " they'll say it's one of Orion's
two hunting dogs - the other one being
Canis Major, the Greater Dog. But as far
as myths go, the bond between Canis
Minor and Orion may give us pause.
In Homer's epic poem the Iliad, for
instance, the 8th-century BC Greek
poet tells us, albeit indirectly, that
the brightest star in the night sky " is
also called by the name of The Dog of
Orion. " He's referring to Sirius. Note
the singular possession: Sirius is not one
of Orion's dogs, but the dog.
In his Poeticon Astronomicon of 1482,
Latin author Gaius Julius Hyginus
informs us that because Canis Minor
" rises before the Greater Dog he is called
Procyon, meaning 'He that runs before
the dog.' " Again, " the dog " in this case
is Sirius; it was common back then to
substitute the name of a constellation
with the name of its brightest star.
Hyginus identifies Procyon as Maera,
the hound of Icarius - the legendary
Athenian who learned winemaking
from Dionysus, Greek god of the
potency and fertility of nature. When
Icarius offered his libations to some
shepherds, they became intoxicated.
Thinking Icarius had tried to poison
them, they stoned him to death.
But Maera escaped; the faithful dog
returned home and brought Icarius's
daughter Erigone to the scene of the
crime. In grief, Erigone buried her
father beneath a tree, then hanged
herself. Maera, equally distraught, leapt
into a well. Zeus honored Icarius and
Erigone with a place in the heavens as
Arcturus and Spica, respectively.
What about Maera? Its identity is
unclear. While the Greeks preferred
Procyon as Maera, Roman poets,
including Ovid (43 BC - AD 17),
branded the dog as Sirius, adding to the
canine confusion.
There is a tale, however, in which
Canis Major and Canis Minor both play
a role - but not as two dogs. In it, Canis
Major is Laelaps, a magical hound as
swift as the wind that never fails in the
hunt. And Canis Minor is the Teumessian
fox, a magical beast so swift it can
never be caught.
In one version of the story, told in
Ovid's epic poem Metamorphoses, the
creatures chased each other in endless
circles until Zeus, Olympian god of the
sky, intervened. Not wanting either
animal to be defeated, he turned them
both into stone. Zeus also placed their
figures in the sky, as the constellations
Canis Major and Canis Minor, to commemorate
their never-ending chase.
The Greeks and Romans were not
the first to envision Canis Minor as a
fox. That interpretation dates to ancient
Mesopotamia, where skywatchers knew
Procyon as either Shelebu or KA.A; both
words mean " the fox. " That animal
took part in many myths, including
the Mesopotamian creation myth. In
it, Enki, god of the life-giving waters
of Earth, has been separated from his
wife Ninhursag, goddess of fertility and
birth. Without her, he is dying, and the
fate of humanity depends on them getting
back together.
Seeing the dilemma, Ninhursag's
sacred fox strikes a bargain with the
gods. He says he'll persuade Ninhursag
to return and heal Enki, if, in return, he
is rewarded with fame. And though the
text has been lost describing how the
clever fox achieved its goal, all is well
in the end: Ninhursag returns to heal
Enki, and humanity is saved.
The map below shows how close Procyon
is to the Milky Way (the shaded
area at top) - which can be imagined
as the celestial counterpart of Enki's
life-giving waters. Seen in this way, it
certainly looks like the fox received a
heavenly reward for saving Enki's life.
What a sly little dog . . . oops, I mean,
what a wily little fox.
¢ Contributing Editor STEPHEN JAMES
O'MEARA has been studying the stars
and their lore for more than 50 years.
pBy 1603, when Johann Bayer published his Uranometria star atlas, the constellation Canis
Minor was a small dog. Many centuries earlier, it was sometimes considered to be a fox instead.
sk yand tele scope .o r g * MARCH 2025 45
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