The Sting: Part I

7/31/05 – 8/6/05

By C. Zaitz

Summertime is a good time for telling stories. Some folks like to sit around campfires in the summer telling stories, as folks have been doing through history. But storytelling happens even without campfires. One story that has been in the news is the story of the return to orbit of the Space Shuttle Discovery. As I write this, Discovery has been successfully launched after a long and nerve wracking wait. I hope by the time you are reading this, the fresh fruits and vegetables will have been safely transferred to the Space Station and the astronauts will be healthy and enjoying their weightless environment.

The return of the Shuttle Discovery is current news, and a happy story after the sad story of the Columbia. But I want to tell you a different kind of story. An old story. One that is not based on science, but based on imagination and human experience. This is a story about Orion and the Scorpion. This story has come down to us from ancient times. Perhaps the story began in Greece, or as some suggest, maybe from the very early civilizations of Babylonia. Some scientists have even found what looks like the stars of Orion carved on ancient tusk over 35,000 years ago! It is a very old story, and one that has been told more than we can imagine. I will tell you the story of the Scorpion who stung Orion.

Some say Orion came from the ancient Babylonian mythology as Uru-anna, or Light of Heaven. It has been suggested that the Greeks kept the name for the mightiest hunter that walked the earth. Orion was a giant, and very skilled in the art of killing. In fact, he was so sure of his skill that he boasted he could kill any living thing on earth. The Goddess of the earth, Gaeia, was angered by this boast, for she was the caretaker of the earth and its inhabitants, including all the creatures that Orion killed. In revenge, Gaeia sent a scorpion to bite and kill Orion.

Now scorpions can’t be seen walking down the sidewalks in Michigan, but thanks to the nature programs on TV, we have most likely seen them on a show like, “The Planet’s Most Deadly Small and Easy to Step On Arachnids.” Scorpions have long, segmented tails that curl up at the end, with the deadly stinger at the very tip. Their sting can pack a wallop, though only a few types of scorpions are actually deadly. Some of the scorpions in Arizona have fatal stings, and the one Gaeia sent to sting Orion was one of these highly toxic scorpions. And so the scorpion found Orion’s tender ankle and stung him with all his might.

Tonight, when you gaze out a south-facing window or perhaps from your back porch, you can see the scorpion low in the southern sky. He glitters like desert sands, from his forward reaching claws to the gentle “s” curve of his graceful, deadly stinger. The brightest star of the scorpion lies near his front claws. It is the star Antares, which glows with a reddish hue, twinkling madly through the moving atmosphere.

So what happened to Orion after he was stung by the deadly scorpion? How did the scorpion get into the sky? Can anyone survive a scorpion attack? Stay tuned for the riveting conclusion and until next week, my friends, enjoy the view!