There is a curious optical illusion which occurs when the moon is among these stars, for the big, round full face of the moon actually _passes through_ the sides of this (seemingly) tiny triangle. But one must be on the alert to view this interesting occurrence for the Moon-goddess travels swiftly in her chariot over the sky and leaves even her lover no more than a passing caress. The explanation is, that the triangle of stars on Orion's head appears small in comparison with the great quadrilateral figure which lies below it, and the delusion as to the size of the moon is accounted for partly as a result of its brightness (the bright rays spreading its image on the retina), and partly because there is nothing in the sky with which to compare it. When the moon rises behind a tree on the hillside it seems a mammoth thing, a silver ball so huge that it seems almost absurd to state that it can flit between the sides of Orion's triangle. Yet the closer it comes to Orion's head the smaller does it seem to become and the larger becomes the triangle. When the two touch sides, the triangle is seen to be large enough to contain the moon, which slides through without touching its stars. ORION'S BELT [Figure 115] Although most popularly known as the "Belt of Orion," this Belt is also known by other names. In the Book of Job it is referred to as the "Bands of Orion"; in the mythology of Greece and Rome, as the arrow with which Diana killed the hunter when he was wading in the sea, and in the mythology of Northern races, as Frigga's jeweled Spinning Wheel with which the Goddess wove the long threads of fleecy clouds. Miss Proctor says that the Eskimos believe that the stars may be three seal hunters who have lost their way, and call them the "Lost Ones," although they also think that the Belt resembles three steps cut in a snowbank. The native Australians unite the Belt stars in a picture with the Pleiad group above Orion's shoulder and, according to Allen, imagine them as three young men "dancing a corroboree" while the Pleiades are the maidens playing for them. In England the Belt is called the "Ell and Yard," the "Yard Wand" and the "Golden Yard," because its stars are equidistant like a measuring rod; it is also called "Jacob's Staff" and sometimes the stars are called the "Three Kings," although the Germans call them the "Three Mowers." Far south on the hot deserts, the Arabs see the Belt stars as a "String of Pearls" and the Arabian astronomers, giving each pearl a name, called the first Mintaka, the second Alnilam and the third Alnitak. Other countries have called the stars "The Spangles" and "The Golden Grains," while Tennyson speaks of them as being "burnished by the frosty dark," which is the poet's way of saying that the stars of the Giant's Belt are exceptionally beautiful.