"Begirt with many a blazing star,
Stood the great giant Algebar
Orion, hunter of the beast."
—Longfellow.
Taurus, the Bull, is easily recognized by his V-shaped face and the red glare of the star which marks his eye. This angry creature charges with lowered head, his golden horns just above the Hunter, who defends himself with his club now decked with glittering star-points and forces the Bull to back before him all the way across the sky.
A first glimpse of the Hunter and the Bull may be obtained in the east about midnight during late October although it is more convenient to look for them in November or December when the Hunter's huge figure stands squarely in the south. By the middle of May, the battle scene has reached the western horizon. One by one, each sparkling light disappears not to be seen again until the following October. One should say perhaps 'at a convenient hour' for in the summer-time Orion may be seen in the east at dawn. Aurora, the Dawn-goddess, up bright and early to open the sun gates for Apollo, saw the handsome hunter on the sky slope decked with red and white and yellow lights of stars. Like Diana, she loved him immediately, but, in the words of the poets, he pales before her colorful radiance as she reaches upward to announce the coming of the sun. Because dawn takes away the stars, Orion is said to have been carried away by this goddess and even yet this story may be seen enacted when watching the glory of Orion captured by Aurora as she flashes rosy-tinted in the east.
THE LION'S SKIN OF ORION
During the course of his adventurous wanderings on earth, Orion once came to the Island of Chios, in the Ægean Sea, where he fell in love with a maiden named Merope. In order to display his skill as a hunter, he cleared the island of its scourge of wild beasts and brought their skins as presents to his sweetheart. This he accomplished alone and unaided except by his mighty club and the protecting hide of a lion. This is the same lion's skin that he wears in the sky during his struggle with Taurus, the Bull, only here it is adorned by a faintly curved row of tiny 4th and 5th magnitude stars, and about ten stars of the 6th magnitude. This "tawny skin" hangs over the Hunter's left arm between his western shoulder and the Bull.
"And on his arm the lion's hide
Scatters across the midnight air
The golden radiance of his hair."
—Longfellow.