If you live in the northern hemisphere, one of the first constellations you probably learned
about was Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Or, more specifically, you probably learned about
the asterism the Big Dipper, which is about fifty percent of the Great Bear. It's big,
recognizable and actually visible a lot more than most constellations - for one simple reason. This
constellation is circumpolar, which means it's close enough to the north star, polaris, that if
you're at a high enough latitude it never actually sets below the horizon, it just spins under the
pole star. And you have to go pretty far south before the constellation ever completely sets; at
most latitudes you'll still be able to see the top part of the Great Bear, and from the perspective
of Greece only the Great Bear's paws are ever obscured - the main body is always visible. Fun
fact, the original purpose of the word "arctic" was to define the area of the planet where an
observer would never see any part of the Great Bear set below the horizon. "Arctic" is derived
from the greek "arktikos", literally meaning "of the bears." It's a very convenient coincidence
that the arctic is also the only natural habitat of polar bears, which aren't found in the
antarctic. It's funny how these things work out! Now Ursa Major has a lot of myths attached to it,
and like all constellation myths, they're not particularly consistent. The only throughline
of a typical constellation myth is that eventually the constellation gets made,
because that's really the only part of the story that demonstrably has to happen. But in the case
of Ursa Major there's one other consistent thread in the greek myths of its creation:
that it isn't a particularly happy affair for anyone involved. So today let's tell a few
versions of the tale of the nymph Callisto, and how she got screwed over in every possible way.
Now this story is retold in Ovid's metamorphoses, Hyginus's Astronomica and a few other places,
and you know it's gonna be bad when Ovid's version isn't notably meaner than the rest. Our story
begins with Callisto, daughter of King Lycaon (of the halloween Werewolf video) and follower
of Artemis. Like all of Artemis's devotees, Callisto likes nothing more than sprinting
through the woods wild and free and hunting her little heart out on all the beasts of the wood.
Well unfortunately for Callisto she's a human being in Ancient Greece and thus catches the
attention of Zeus, who's tired of Hera spotting all his earthly escapades and wants to stress-test
the idea that maybe a thin covering of trees will prevent the goddess-queen of marriage and familial
responsibility from noticing him cheating on her for the fourth time that month. So Zeus zips down
to earth while Callisto is relaxing in a wild and ancient grove, and to further avoid suspicion Zeus
takes the form of Artemis. In this form he seduces Callisto, which, depending on the version, she may
or may not have been super into. Regardless of the specifics, the outcome is the same - Callisto
becomes pregnant, and when this is discovered, Artemis is pretty peeved that one of her followers
didn't maintain the maidenhood that Artemis is so big on, and kicks her out of the group.
This is where the story starts getting very wibbly depending on who's telling it. In Ovid's version,
Callisto is exiled from Artemis's followers and gives birth to a son named Arcas. Hera seizes the
opportunity to curse Callisto for, you know, the usual reasons, and transforms her into an enormous
bear. Callisto, trapped in this form, wanders the mountains, torn between worlds and utterly alone,
unable to even petition Zeus for help on account of being a bear. Meanwhile her son Arcas spends
the next fifteen years doing normal baby stuff like pretty quickly not being a baby anymore,
and one day, while out hunting, he encounters a bear - a strange bear that looks at him with a
very piercing expression and doesn't seem at all inclined to attack him. Even so,
a bear is a bear, and Arcas moves to attack it. This kicks off Zeus's fratricidal spidey-sense
and he finally clocks the situation, and to prevent the tragedy of Arcas accidentally
killing his own mother Zeus thinks fast and raises them into the sky, transforming mother
and son into the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the nearby little bear constellation
whose tail contains the north star Polaris. Spared from inflicting the ultimate tragedy
on each other, the two bears spin through the night sky together for all eternity,
most likely united in the feeling that there had to be a better solution than this, Zeus.
But other versions of the story don't quite play out the same way. Hyginus's Astronomica,
for instance, enumerates several ways Callisto has been mythically transformed into a bear - in some
version by Artemis herself, in at least one case because Callisto loudly said that Artemis was the
one who got her pregnant in the first place, which is honestly pretty funny just for the
sheer audacity. In other versions Zeus turned Callisto into a bear to hide her from Hera,
and in some stories Artemis is subsequently the one who unknowingly killed Callisto.
In another version bear-Callisto and her son are captured by Arcadians and brought to King
Lycaon to sacrifice to Zeus for trespassing in his temple. Zeus, catching wind of this,
zops them into the stars as constellations. In this one, intriguingly, Arcas is transformed into
a different constellation - instead of Ursa Minor he becomes the constellation Bootes, which most
notably contains the red star Arcturus, whose name means "guardian of the bear" and is very easily
found and identified by following the arc of the tail of Ursa Major to the nearest bright star.
In Ovid's Fasti it's also explained why the Great Bear never sinks below the horizon:
Hera negotiated with Tethys, one of the ocean titans, to keep them away from her
waters to make their starry fate just a little shittier for them. Thanks, Hera!
Arcas also has a little more going on in some stories - Pausanias's Descriptions of Greece lists
several of his accomplishments after Callisto was turned into a bear, most notably becoming the
King of Arcadia, which wasn't even called Arcadia until Arcas introduced the locals to agriculture,
weaving and the glorious technology of bread. The land and its people were renamed in Arcas's honor,
and on top of all that, he supposedly married a dryad named Erato and had several children
who later began several lines of Arcadian kings. Pausanias, a practical guy, can accept a legendary
king being birthed by a bear and marrying a wood-nymph but draws the line at people turning
into stars, and in his telling Arcas never becomes a constellation, and even Callisto's
starry fate is questioned - Arcas just dies like a normal person, and his grave is described near the
temple of Hera in the Arcadian town of Maenalos. No matter the specifics of the story, and even
no matter which constellations they get ascribed to, a few unsurprising details remain consistent:
the unfortunate nymph Callisto is transformed into a bear, and then to sort of make up for
it is divinely transformed into the constellation the Great Bear. Her son Arcas goes on to do other
things but after his death or ascension remains nearby, either as the bearlike Ursa Minor or the
more humanoid Bootes constellation, accompanying and watching over his mother as she slowly turns
around the pole star. While it makes sense that the only part of the story that's 100% consistent
is the part where the immutable stars take the arrangement they have in real life, it's still a
bit of a bummer that we don't have more reliable throughlines to trace. Overall, the one thing
all the versions agree on is the same thing that everyone always agrees on: it's all Zeus's fault.