eTwinkling legends

Index

Myths, Legends and History of ...

Andromeda & Perseus
Orion Nebula
Milky Way Galaxy
Magellan
Vera Rubin Galaxy
The Pillars of Hercules
Ursa Major
Part of Ursa Major - Göncöl Szekér
The eTwinkling Gallaxy

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Presentation

Look at the sky with a naked eye

Legend has it that every atom in our body was once part of a star. All the stars are part of the same universe and we are all part of it.
At night, gazing at the celestial vault everyone wonders, what are stars made of? Will the stories we are told be true? Why are they named like that? what if one night they couldn't be seen...? Starlight is magic.
Every civilization gives a reason for the stars bright above, many times as mortals, gods or godesses...

It was a time, in 2022, when schools from three countries (Spain, Hungary and North Macedonia) agreed to work together. They had never met before but felt it was the time to make joint effort to protect their home, the Earth and its environment, the universe and the night sky.
We can only love what we know so, would you ride with us in our walk accross the sky ?

Perseus was the son of Zeus and the mortal Danae. Danae's father had locked her in a bronze tower to prevent her from conceiving a son, as an oracle had assured him that his grandson would kill him. Zeus, who was in love with Danae because of her beauty, visited her in the form of a shower of gold, from which Perseus was born. Acrisius, surprised, locked the mother and son in a box and threw them into the sea, but thanks to the protection of Zeus, the box arrived safely on the island of Seriphos, where Danae and her son were welcomed by the king. Polydectes fell in love with Danae and decided to get rid of the boy. For that reason he commissioned him to bring him the head of the Gorgon Medusa, something impossible given the appearance of the monster, which turned to stone anyone who dared to look at it.

Fortunately, Perseus had the help of Athena, who was at odds with Medusa. The goddess gave Perseus a bronze mirror that reflected everything he saw and told him what he had to do. First he should visit the Gorgons, three sisters who lived in North Africa, witches who shared only one eye. Perseus stole their eye and forced them to show him the way to Medusa in exchange for the eye. Some nymphs gave Perseus a helmet that made him invisible, a pair of winged sandals and a sack in which to put Medusa's head when he had caught her, and Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, gave him a magic sabre.

With the help of all the gifts, Perseus flew to the home of the other gorgons by the Ocean. Using his shield as a mirror so that he would not have to look directly at Medusa and prevent her from turning him to stone, he cut off the snake-filled head of the monster with the sabre of Hermes and placed it in the sack. The blood shed by Medusa gave rise to the winged horse Pegasus.

On his way back he met the titan Atlas. Perseus was not well received because an oracle had told Atlas that a son of Zeus would steal the apples from the garden of the Hesperides, golden apples that provided immortality. Perseus showed him the head of Medusa and turned it into stone, thus becoming the mountain range we know by that name. Perseus continued his journey westward through Africa and arrived in Ethiopia, where he saw a beautiful girl chained to a rock by the sea. She was Andromeda, the daughter of King Cepheus, who was about to be sacrificed to a sea monster as a conciliatory act for the arrogant words of her mother Cassiopeia, who had said that her daughter was more beautiful than the nereids, the 50 nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea.

Perseus saw the terrible monster Cetus appear from the depths of the sea to devour Andromeda and told her desperate parents that he would save her if they promised to make her his wife. Cepheus and Cassiopeia readily agreed and even offered her the kingdom as a dowry. And so it was, Perseus killed the monster and back in Argos, ascended to the throne and there he stayed to live happily with Andromeda and her seven children.
After his death, the one who had been his great protector, Athena, raised him to the heavens and turned him into a constellation. Andromeda and her parents received the same honour.