Winter position is not held by Fionn, but by the 

 Stars. 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 

 ' 308 



