A Brief Introduction of Astrology

The Story Behind The Sign

Gather around my children if you've had enough patience for my Gemini ways of publishing and not publishing at times then this is my small gift to you dear fellows and ladies these are the, incredibely, short tales of the signs that this book is all about.

Aries

The story starts of as most of these stories involving Greek gods do a god had sex with a human and made a kid or in this case two Phrixus and Helle who were the children of Athamas, King of Bolotia, and Nephele, a goddess of the clouds. If only Athamas hadn't cheated when he got his twin heirs on his wife Ino who hated her step children so much so she roasted the seeds in Bolotia the people became panicked at the thought of famine. A few farmers left to visit the oracle to find a way to appease the gods and not starve to death Ino paid them to say that the onl way to appease the gods was to sacrifice Helle and Phrixus. The gods had a different plan though they sent a giant golfen ram to the children and saved the twins from their certain doom, the ram didn't help Helle too much since she fell off at what later would be called Hellespont. The boy, Phrixus, traveled all the way to Colchis where he met a son of Helios and was treated so well he got a wife out of the whole thing in which Phrixus was so grateful he killed the ram that saved him and his sister. The body was sacrificed to Zeus and the fleece to the king he laid the golden fleece in a holy grove of Ares (Aries) which is probably how the ram got its name or perhaps someone it was random either way this is the story of said ram.

Taurus

I found three stories of how the bull became to be up in the stars one goes like this, once again a god chaing after a mortal, Zeus took the form of a bull and met a princess named Europa. The princess saw the strong yet gentle bull and went to investigate this led to them playing around in what can be assumed was a beach. When all was said and done the bull, Zeus, took Europa to the island Crete where he revealed his true self and it sort of teeters off their but one can assume they had some kids.

Zeus saw Europa and decided he wanted to make her his by seducing her so he turned into a bull to mingle in the herd of her father's Europa petted the bull eventually getting on its back. Zeus takes the oppurtunity and runs into the water with all the herdsmen chasing after trying to save her Zeus goes to Crete for some privacy. There Europa becomes the first queen of Crete and is given several gifts, I guess as a way to say sorry for taking her from everything she loved, Zeus then commerates the occasion by putting the image of the bull in the stars.

The third one doesn't having anything to do with poor Europa getting forced to have sex with Zeus or tricked by him in fact it has nothing to do with mongrel Zeus it deals with Persephone and a regular bull. Cerus, the bull, would go on rampages with the slightest on irritation destroying villages in moments one day Perephone spots Cerus tearing up a spring meadow and calms Cerus with just her being. Persephone teaches Cerus to stop letting his anger get out of hand and destroy things instead to filter through the emotions as well use his strength to help instead of hinder. They build a bond so that every spring Cerus helps Persephone raise spring blooming the plants then when fall comes Cerus returns to the heavens while Persephone goes to the underworld.

Gemini

Castor and Pollux were children of Leda who was a busy woman one night getting pregnant by her husband and Zeus, who took the form of a swan, Pollux was Zeus's while Castor was Tyndarus's, king of Sparta. Pollux was immortal being Zeus's son while Castor was not however both brothers were revered as heros travelling with Jason to get the golden fleece and fighting in the Trojan War. When Castor died Pollux was so grieved by the loss that he begged Zeus to bring Castor back Zeus allowed them to be formed into stars so they could forever be together.

Cancer

One popular story of how this crab came to be, and possibly the worst story of all of mythology, was this one: when Hercules was trying to kill the hydra Cancer pinched Hercules who then smashed it to which Hera felt sorry for the crab and put it into the heavens... that's it.

A second story is a bit better and it goes more along the lines like this: a huge crab named Crios protected the nymphs of Poseidon's kingdom he was a huge crab blessed with immortality. Typhon was running a muk in the world and most of the gods went into hiding Poseidon left Crios in charge of protecting the nymphs all the same. The nymphs became convinced that the monsters were gone and left to go do whatever nymphs do Crios would not leave the nymphs who had stayed so he sent Vamari, the vampire squid, to go and get the nymphs. Vamari devoured the nymphs and came back to Crios saying he couldn't find any of the nymphs Crios knew what Vamari had done and attacked Vamari. In the attack Vamari was killed while Crios was crippled badly as a way to repay Crios Poseidon let him be seen by all in the stars.

Leo

I find this story to be equally as unsatisfactory as the popular Cancerian story but I can't really argue with it so here it goes. To really get it you have to understand that Zeus is a lady's man and at the time he didn't have many godly options for a queen of Olympus he had the sworn of Vesta, a grumpy wheat goddess, and the beautiful but intense Hera. It would suck but the problem was made worse by Poseidon and Hades who both would love to take his spot as king god so he courted Hera. Hera wasn't even really into Zeus who she knew wouldn't be faithful because he was Zeus for Zeus's sake so when Hera had the brilliant idea of having a kid to cement their vows she was disgusted to find Hephaestus. Zeus could make a much more beautiful kid that flew out of his head than Hera and Zeus could make together. This was only so much more wrong for Hera because of Zeus's terrible behavior he often went and made nightly visits to human women and Hera was pissed. I'm not saying what she did was right I'm just saying that there was some bad blood there in the first place so when Zeus and some human had the great and powerful Hercules who was named after Hera she was beyond infuriated. Hera made Hercules go mad and kill his entire family in her anger then made him pay penitence for his actions by completing twelve tasks. One of these was to kill her lion who had been devouring followers of Zeus for ages now but the trick is that this was the invincible giant Nemean Lion. Hercules wasn't stupid though you'd think with all his bronze there'd be no room for brains but he had it. Hercules clubbed the lion dazing it so that he could strangle it to death but this wasn't all he had to do. Hera wanted the lion's skin so Hercules had to skin the lion's impenetrable skin the way he did this was by going through the fingernails. Hercules brought the skin back and Hera or Zeus was so upset they flung the lion into the stars like they did with everyone else.