But to return to Arcturus. This beautiful golden star is called the "harbinger of spring" because it rises on the first of March just as the flowers of this season are awakening along the brooks and hillsides. Watch for it about 8 P. M. just a little north of east. At this point it is at its very best for the thickened atmosphere near the horizon fires the orange-yellow to a molten rose, while the flickering and the dancing causes burning waves of crimson, sparks of opal and glints of gold. It reaches the meridian June 8th about 9 P. M. but its eager, splintering light is now calmed to a steady glow and the star hangs like a golden lamp above the world. From July to December, this splendid star floats lower and lower through the western part of the heavens until it touches the horizon in the northwest and disappears. THE NORTHERN CROWN [Figure 59] The Northern Crown really looks like a crown. Its outline is easily traced, although its stars are delicate with the exception of one which is much larger and brighter than the others. It closely follows Arcturus and is best seen during the early evenings of July when it is floating high in the dome of the heavens, a most fascinating star figure. Long ago, in some of the old countries, people saw in this "Crown" the likeness to a broken plate held out by a beggar to receive alms; the Pawnee Indians imagined it a camp circle of warriors sitting in council around their camp fire and that the bright star was a servant preparing a feast over the fire; the Australian natives called it the "boomerang," but in Greek mythology this is the crown which Bacchus gave the beautiful Ariadne after she had been deserted by Theseus, King of Athens, on the island of Naxos which lay far out to sea. According to a later legend, from which the Crown obtained its name, a yearly tribute of seven youths and maidens was exacted from the Athenians by the tyrant Minos, King of the Island of Crete. These Athenian captives were then rowed over from Greece to Crete and confined in a labyrinth as a feast for a ferocious Minotaur. This labyrinth had been constructed by Dædalus, a most ingenious artist and artificer, who had so perfected the intricate maze of passageways that neither the Minotaur, nor any of his victims, could possibly escape.