—Manilius.
In ancient Judea it was imagined as a Long Bandage wrapped around the heavens.
Others thought that the Milky Way was not an imperfection in the floor of heaven but a pathway left open for the angels. A French legend has it the glimmering of lights held by angels to guide mortals on their way to heaven. Some of the tribes of American Indians have a legend somewhat like the French legend for they, too, thought that it was a road on which souls journeyed to their "happy hunting ground." The large stars, on either side of the road, were camp fires which cheered and warmed the travelers on their way.
Aristotle imagined that this misty arch of light was the result of gaseous exhalations which had risen from the earth and now rested between the region of the ether and that of the planets.
"The stars, and Sun himself, as some have said
By exhalations from the deep are fed."
—Lucan's Pharsalia.
Posidonious thought that it was a compound of fire less dense than that of the stars but more luminous. Still others fancifully considered it to be the course of the sun-chariot after Phæthon had lost control of his horses and that along here were the imprints of the hot hoofs and the ruts scorched by the fiery wheels.
A more modern legend of Swedish origin tells of the construction of the Milky Way by two lovers who were mourning for each other on separate stars. After toiling a thousand years they built this "bridge of starry light" which spanned the space between the two stars and enabled them to once more be united.
"And now Salami and Zulamith, when this long toil was done,
Straight rushed into each other's arms, and melted into one.
So they became the brightest star in heaven's high arch that dwelt,
Great Sirius, the mighty sun, beneath Orion's belt."
—Topelius.