COMETS 231 



of which we have record. Finally, it has become the 

 leading instance of the triumph of scientific knowledge 

 and accuracy over ignorance and superstition. Halley's 

 comet caused great alarm in Rome in the year 66 A.D. A 

 thousand years later (1066) it was seen when William the 

 Conqueror was preparing to descend on the coast of 

 England, and is actually represented in the Bayeux 

 tapestry. A number of men are drawn (or rather 

 "stitched"), with fingers pointed and eyes raised to a 

 shape in the sky which resembles a star-fish with a large 

 triangular-ribbed petticoat attached to it, ending in eight 

 flames or tongues (Fig. 45). The picture is labelled 

 " Isti mirant stella." There is now no doubt, as accurate 

 calculations have demonstrated, that William the Con- 

 queror's "star" was Halley's comet a fact which must 

 give its reappearance in 1910 an additional interest in 

 the eyes of Englishmen. 



The shape given to the representations of stars in old 

 pictures and engravings is a puzzle. Why do they repre- 

 sent a star by the shape of a star-fish ? No star ever 

 looks like that, or produces a picture of that shape on 

 the retina. The thing is purely conventional. The shape 

 which we call " star-shaped " a term we apply to flowers 

 and other things is not in the least like a real star as 

 seen by an unprejudiced person. What one really sees is 

 an ill-defined point of light. The pretended conventional 

 star of ancient drawings perhaps arose from the simple 

 artifice of picturing tongue-like flames around or upon 

 any representation of a fire or a source of light " to show 

 what it was meant to be." Then the notions of perfection 

 and symmetry in regard to the celestial bodies led to the 

 " tongues " being arranged for the purposes of draughts- 

 manship as perfectly symmetrical-pointed rays of a six- or 

 eight-limbed geometrical design and latterly it is possible 

 that the mystical figure known as the "pentacle" was 



