BEARS

 

A Big Bear and A Little Bear

 

 

See those stars up in the night,

Twinkling from their heavenly height?

They form a plough, perhaps a pan?

Nope.  Seems they’re bears, chased there by man.

 

Or jealous Juno in a huff,

In her rage she’d had enough,

She changed Callisto to a bear

Then Jupiter chucked her, way up there!

                                                 

Bears wandering the northern sky?

You’d really have to wonder why,

So read this blog and you will see,

Why two bears shine, eternally!

 

 

By Jeanie

 

Ursa Major, the “great she bear” in Latin, shines in the northern sky.   It is the largest northern constellation and third largest constellation in the sky. Ursa Major is visible all year round in the Northern Hemisphere and never sets below the horizon, although it does get very low during the winter months.

 

Bears can lumber along on all fours or stand up on their hind feet. Ursa Major changes from quadrupedal to bipedal as she travels across the sky, seeming to run along on all fours near the horizon and then rising to her hind legs to climb back to the heavens.


Ursa Major (The Big Dipper) Explained For Kids. Facts & Myth


In Roman and Greek mythology Callisto was dozing in the forest.  Jupiter (or Zeus in the Greek myth) saw her and thought she was lovely.  When Jupiter's jealous wife, Juno (or Hera in the Greek version) discovered that Callisto had a son she decided that Jupiter was the father and changed Callisto into a bear so she would no longer be beautiful. Fifteen years later Callisto's son, Arcas, had grown up to be a hunter.  One day Callisto saw Arcas and ran up to him, forgetting she was a bear but Arcas thought he was being attacked and shot an arrow at her. Luckily Jupiter saw the arrow and stopped it. To save Callisto and her son from further harm from Juno, Jupiter changed Arcas into a bear too, grabbed them both by their tails, (or sent a whirlwind), and swung them into the heavens so they could live peacefully among the stars forever. Juno was raging. She went to the gods of the sea and forbade them to let the two bears wade in water or streams on their endless journey around the pole star.

 

In some Native American tales, the constellation represents a large bear and the stars in the “handle” are warriors chasing it. Since the constellation is low in the sky in autumn, the legend says that it is the blood of the wounded bear that causes the leaves to turn red.

 

 

Ursa Major’s brightest stars form the Plough or the Big Dipper, one of the most recognisable shapes in the sky.  The Plough is very useful in navigation because it points the way to Polaris, the North Star, which is part of the Little Dipper in Ursa Minor (the lesser bear).  The bears helped slaves find their way north: there were numerous songs that spread among slaves in the south that said to follow the ‘Drinking Gourd’ to get to a better life.  Ursa Major is often a symbol of the north. Its depiction on the flag of Alaska is a modern example.

 


Flag of Alaska

 

 

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