“... when with fierce winds Orion arm’d Hath vext the Red-sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry....” or Tennyson’s beautiful line in _Locksley Hall_: “Great Orion sloping slowly to the west....” or, it may be, that epic of ‘Orion’ upon which is based Richard Hengist Horne’s claim to remembrance--or, once more, Matthew Arnold’s fine allusion to Sirius and Orion in _Sohrab and Rustum_: “... the Northern Bear, Who from her frozen height with jealous eye Confronts the Dog and Hunter in the South.” Before Catullus or Pindar the Egyptians had identified Orion both with Horus and Osiris. Among the peoples of Israel the poets acclaimed the constellation as Nimrod, ‘the mighty Hunter’ (or by another term signifying the Giant), ‘bound to the sky for rebellion against Jehovah.’ Among the Celtic races it has had kindred names, sometimes abstract, sometimes personal, as the Gaelic Fionn. A year or so ago I was told a sea-tale of the Middle Isles, in which was an allusion to this constellation as The Bed of Diarmid. This is of especial interest, because of its connection with Fionn or Finn, the Nimrod, the great Hunter of the Gael. But in this story (a modern, not an ancient tale, though with more than one strange old survival) the major position is not held by Fionn, but by the Alban-Gaelic hero Diarmid, who is represented as succumbing under the spear thrust in his left side by the enraged Fionn, at last in grips with the daring chieftain who had robbed him of Grania. When questioned, my informant said he had heard a variant of this attribution, and that the constellation was an image of Diarmid with Grania hanging to his side in a swoon, because she and her lover have been overtaken by the wrath of Fionn ... though from the description I could not make out whether the latter indicated the star Sirius, or the rival constellation of the Great Bear. The Gaels of old called Orion _Caomai_, a name said to signify the Armed King: while the _Gall_ (the Scandinavian races) applied the name _Orwandil_, but with what signification I do not know, though I have read somewhere that it stood for Hero, or for an heroic personage. Of the chief stars in Orion there is not space here to speak. But of the splendid Rigel--as affluent in the mysterious science of the astrologer as in nocturnal light--pearly Anilam, of the Belt or Sword--ominous Bellatrix--ruddy-flamed Betelgeuze--of these alone one might write much ... as one might write much of the Girdle or Staff itself, what Scott in _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ calls ‘Orion’s studded belt.’ It has a score of popular names, from the Danish Frigge Rok (Freya’s Distaff) to the seamen’s ‘Yard-arm,’ as, collectively, its three great stars have all manner of names in different countries, from the Magi, or the Three Kings or the Three Marys, to The Rake of the French Rhinelanders or the Three Mowers of the Silesian peasant.