or Tennyson's beautiful line in Locksley Winter 

 Hall: ' Stars. 



" Great Orion sloping slowly to the west . . ." 



or, it may be, that epic of ' Orion ' upon which 

 is based Richard Hengist Home's claim to re- 

 membrance 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 ac- 

 claimed 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 

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