Why "the Bear" is a Bear

Mercury, May/June 2006 Table of Contents

by Brian O'Brian

Unquestionably the best known star group in the heavens is the northern configuration we in America know as the Big Dipper, a name clearly suggested by its shape. Many of its popular names elsewhere have likewise been suggested by its shape. In England, for example, it is known as the Plough and also as Charles's Wain (Wagon), reflecting an especially widespread and ancient image seen in the configuration.

But what is believed to be the group’s oldest name, the Bear, defies expectations in this respect. Efforts to make out the shape of a bear in its famous seven stars are doomed to disappointment. Consulting history will provide no clues, either, for the name comes to us out of the mists of prehistory. The ancient Greeks appear to have been puzzled by it, too. In strained efforts to rationalize it, they added other stars to the group to make it more bear-like in appearance. So it was that the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear) ultimately came into being, of which the Big Dipper is only the core asterism. Yet we must not let the evolution of the name obscure the fact that originally, in the time of Homer and undoubtedly much further back than that, "the Bear" referred to the core asterism alone.

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