Encyclopedia of Arda: Wain

"...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.

Wain

A Mannish name for the Sickle of the Valar

Notes

See also...