seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and in
Australia they were and are a queen and six handmaidens. In these
countries, as elsewhere, stories were told to account for the "lost
Pleiad", a fact which suggests that primitive men were more constant
observers of the heavenly bodies than might otherwise be supposed. The
Arcadians believed that they were descended, as Hesiod recorded, from
a princess who was transformed by Zeus into a bear; in this form
Artemis slew her and she became the "Great Bear" of the sky. The
Egyptian Isis was the star Sirius, whose rising coincided with the
beginning of the Nile inundation. Her first tear for the dead Osiris
fell into the river on "the night of the drop". The flood which ensued
brought the food supply. Thus the star was not only the Great Mother
of all, but the sustainer of all.

The brightest stars were regarded as being the greatest and most
influential. In Babylonia all the planets were identified with great
deities. Jupiter, for instance, was Merodach, and one of the astral
forms of Ishtar was Venus. Merodach was also connected with "the fish
of Ea" (Pisces), so that it is not improbable that Ea worship had
stellar associations. Constellations were given recognition before the
planets were identified.

A strange blending of primitive beliefs occurred when the deities were
given astral forms. As has been shown (Chapter III) gods were supposed
to die annually. The Egyptian priests pointed out to Herodotus the
grave of Osiris and also his star. There are "giants' graves" also in
those countries in which the gods were simply ferocious giants. A god
might assume various forms; he might take the form of an insect, like
Indra, and hide in a plant, or become a mouse, or a serpent, like the
gods of Erech in the Gilgamesh epic. The further theory that a god
could exist in various forms at one and the same time suggests that it
had its origin among a people who accepted the idea of a personal god
while yet in the stage of Naturalism. In Egypt Osiris, for instance,
was the moon, which came as a beautiful child each month and was
devoured as the wasting "old moon" by the demon Set; he was the young
god who was slain in his prime each year; he was at once the father,
husband, and son of Isis; he was the Patriarch who reigned over men
and became the Judge of the Dead; he was the earth spirit, he was the
bisexual Nile spirit, he was the spring sun; he was the Apis bull of
Memphis, and the ra