The place is even yet easily located on account of the clearly marked outlines of the Dippers.
This sympathy on the part of Jupiter aroused Juno to such a jealous rage that she immediately sought a way to bring discomfort to the Bears, particularly to the Bear which was Callisto. It seems that the Greeks believed that the stars enjoyed a dip in the western waves of the ocean before disappearing to the darkness below the horizon, and seeing in this a chance for revenge, Juno harnessed up her peacocks and drove to the palace of Oceanus, the ancient God of the Ocean Stream. Here the goddess found the Ocean God (who was one of the Titans and ruled before Neptune's time), and calling him up from the briny depths inveigled that deity to swear by the river Styx that he would drive the "seven Triones" away from his "azure waters" every time these stars appeared and never, under any circumstances, would he share his hospitality with the Bears. After the long journey from the east across the dimly lighted heavens, this was a hardship difficult to endure, yet to this day, since a god's decree may never be changed, the two Bears turn as they approach the ocean and dare not even linger to sniff the spray. While all the other constellations immerse their stars beneath the waves, these poor creatures again ascend the steep slope of the sky and repeat the big circle about the pole of the heavens with never a rest—nor a bath.
But travelers have quietly observed these stars in a latitude south of 40 degrees, and have noticed, as they approached the equator, that the Bears slip their feet into the sea and still farther south
"despite of Juno, lave
Their tardy bodies in the boreal wave."
Allen, in "Star Names and Their Meanings," comments on the singularity that peoples separated by an impassable ocean had like ideas concerning the resemblance of Ursa Major to a bear.
"Whence came the same idea into the minds of our North American Indians? Was it by accident? The conformation in no way resembles the animal,—indeed the contrary; yet they called them Okuari and Paukunawa, words for bear, long before they were visited by white men. In justice, however, to their familiarity with a bear's anatomy, it should be said that the impossible tail of our Ursa was to them either Three Hunters or a Hunter and two dogs in pursuit of the creature, the star Alcor being the pot in which to cook her. They thus avoided the incongruousness of the present astronomical ideas of Bruin's makeup, although their cooking utensil was inadequate."
According to this legend, which is related from a monograph on "The Celestial Bear" by Stansbury Hagar, the whole bear is represented by the stars of the Big Dipper. The first hunter, who is the first star in the handle of the Dipper, was called the robin and carried the bow with which to kill the bear. The chicadee, the second star in the handle of the Dipper, carried the pot, the little star Alcor, in which to cook the bear. The third hunter, the moosebird, carried the sticks with which to build the fire. Four other hunters followed besides the three represented by the stars in the Dipper's handle.
The chase continues throughout the summer until part of the hunters disappear below the horizon. About mid-autumn the Bear rises up to defend herself but is pierced by an arrow of the robin, and the autumn leaves are stained scarlet from his wounds. The spirit of the dead Bear enters into another Bear and the chase begins again and so keeps up eternally. In the Indian version the group of stars above the hunters (which is the Bear's head in the Ursa Major of the Greeks), is the Bear's den. This den is picturesquely situated on the northern horizon early in the spring and, to the mind of the Indian, the great Bear seems as if it were just emerging after a long winter's hibernation.