Seven Stars Mythology

In Greek mythology the seven stars of The Pleiades represented the seven daughters of the god and goddess Atlas and Pleione. The daughters' names were Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Maia, Merope, Taygete and Electra. The brightest star in the cluster, Alcyone, is closely attended by the 'parent' stars Atlas and Pleione. Only six of the sister stars can be seen readily with the naked eye and there are various stories associated with the seventh daughter or 'lost Pleiad'. Even though Celaeno is the faintest star in the group some versions of the Greek story claim the lost Pleiad is Electra, as she hides her face from the burning of Troy.

In the tradition of the Wyandot Indians of Kansas the cluster of seven stars or 'Hutiwatsija' are a group of boys who danced up into the sky.

An even more ancient association with the Pleiades is proposed by Michael A. Rappenglück in his paper The Pleiades in the 'Salle des Taureaux', Grotto de Lascaux.

The paintings in the cave of Lascaux in France are among the oldest pre-historic pictures in Europe. Many different animals are represented in the paintings, but some of the most beautiful are a group of Aurochs (ancient cattle). Rappenglück suggests that a cluster of six dots close to the largest Auroch in the group represents the Pleiades. The constellation of Taurus the bull is close to the Pleiades in the night sky and the six brightest stars of the Pleiades form a pattern not unlike the arrangement of dots painted on the ceiling of the cave.

Ancient Mesopotamian cultures included astrological images in their art. Six dots around a central dot, a symbol found in art from the Mitannian culture (about 1500-1360 BC), has been interpreted as the Pleiades. Eighteen signs of the zodiac are known from 1000 BC and a clay tablet from the ancient city of Uruk bears a group of symbols: two rows of three stars with the seventh between the rows and to one side. These are interpreted as the Pleiades. Three dots with the seventh to the right are common in art from the Neo-Assyrian (around 1000-609BC) and Neo-Babylonian (626-539BC). In Assyrian, Babylonian and later art, seven dots (and sometimes seven stars) are associated with the Pleiades and also represent a group of gods called 'The Seven'.

The night sky also featured in ancient Egyptian creation myths. The sky goddess Nut was often depicted with stars covering her body. She was sister/wife of Geb, god of the earth, and they were believed to have been the parents of four of the most important gods in the Egyptian pantheon: Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys.

Perhaps it was during a visit to the Egyptian galleries in the British Museum that Abraham (Bram) Stoker (1847-1912) got the idea for his novel, The Jewel of the Seven Stars. Stoker had a British Museum Library Reading Room ticket from about 1879, which he promptly lost. In 1905, two years after The Jewel was published, he wrote a letter to the Museum requesting a replacement. You can read The Jewel of the Seven Stars on-line at the Project Gutenberg website or, for a post-modern twist to the tale, read Kim Newman's collection of short stories Seven Stars (published by Simon & Schuster, 2000).

In the Christian tradition 'seven stars' also figure in the symbolic language of the Book of Revelation in the Bible. They are associated with the Seven Churches of Asia Minor.

Two astronomical groups of seven stars that appear in mythological stories are the Little and Big Dippers. The Little Dipper is a common name for Ursa Minor or The Lesser Bear. This constellation was created in the sixth century BC as an aid to navigation; Polaris, the North Star, marks the tip of the bear's tail. Because the North Star is so prominent and remains fixed in the night sky, mythologies world-wide have referred to it since ancient times . Other stars in Ursa Minor are Yildun delta, Yildun epsilon, Yildun zeta, Yildun eta, Kochab beta and Pherkad gamma.

The brightest group of seven stars in the sky is the Big Dipper, or Plough as it is known in the UK. This forms part of  the constellation Ursa Major or The Great Bear. The Big Dipper forms the head, neck and forepart of Ursa Major and a line drawn northwards through two of its brightest stars, Merok and Dubhe, points to the North Star. In England, The Plough is a common name for public houses and has obvious associations with the countryside. Seven Stars is less common but may have similar associations in some cases.

Groups of seven stars also featured in 18th trade signs and may be associated with fraternal societies. In America early meetings of the Independent Order of Oddfellows took place at the Seven Stars tavern in Baltimore. And a group of seven stars feature frequently in Freemasonry symbols. On his Dark Star website, Andy Lloyd draws attention to the similarity of the Freemason's Royal Arch with the door to the caverns of Moria in the first of the three Lord of the Rings films. Tolkien's work is so rich in symbolism and draws on many different traditions that it is hardly surprising to find seven stars somewhere in his work. In fact seven stars appear in several of Tolkien's works. In the Hobbit, the Middle Earth name for the constellation of the Plough is 'Wain' (see Encyclopedia of Arda for more Tolkien mythology); In The Silmarillion the Seven Stars are 'the Sickle of the Valar, that Varda hung above the North' and reference to the stars is also found in one of the many little rhymes that Tolkien wove into the books of his epic story Lord of the Rings:

Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.

The white tree, in flower, and seven stars also appear as the motif on Arwen's Standard of Gondor in The Return of the King. and The Sword of Elendil had seven stars on its blade.

Seven stars also play a part in the history of the American Civil war. The first seven Confederate states were represented as a circle of seven stars on the 'Stars and Bars' Confederate national flag.

Coming right up to date, the Pleiades (and indeed the stars in general) continue to inspire new mythologies. Stories of alien DNA from the stars or monuments built on earth as star-maps for visitors from outer space, for example, are as popular as those once told about mystical gods and goddesses in ancient times. Seven stars mythology continues.....

Bibliography:

Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, 1998, British Museum Press, pp. 162-164.

Bram Stoker, The Jewel of Seven Stars, 1996 (first published 1903), Oxford University Press.