"...the stars of the Wain were already twinkling..."
The Hobbit, 10 A Warm Welcome
The seven stars of the Wain
The name in the northern lands of Middle-earth for the constellation2 we know today as the Plough or the Big Dipper. In Tolkien's mythology, these seven stars were set in the sky by Varda in the shape of a mighty sickle, as a warning to Melkor and his underlings. The Men and Hobbits of the northern lands seem to have been ignorant of this, though: they gave these stars the more prosaic name of 'the Wain', meaning a wagon or cart.
Notes
1 |
Tolkien's choice of the name 'Wain' must come from the real medieval name for this group of stars: Charles' Wain ('Charles' here refers to the Emperor Charlemagne). Though Charlemagne has no place in Tolkien's world, the seven stars do form roughly the shape of a horse-drawn cart, and the name would have been natural in the setting of Middle-earth. |
2 |
Strictly speaking, the Wain isn't a constellation - it forms part of the larger constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. |
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