What the constellation represents: a swan
History: ancient
Region of sky where it is located: northern hemisphere
When visible: May-December
How visible: Easy
Objects of interest: brightest star Deneb, double star Albireo, North America Nebula, Veil Nebula, Cygnus X1 (black hole), Cygnus A (active galaxy and radio source), 61 Cygni aka the ‘flying star’
How to see it: in summer, you’ll see this graceful constellation flying overhead. It looks initially like a cross, but if you really look, you’ll see stars making the shape of wings outspread, a long neck and a bright star upon the tail, giving the appearance of a swan in flight. It is also part of the Summer Triangle asterism, its northeastern corner marked by Cygnus’s brightest star, Deneb.
For verily in heaven there is outspread a glittering Bird. Wreathed in mist is the Bird, but yet the parts above him are rough with stars, not very large, yet not obscure. Like a bird in joyous flight, with fair weather it glides to the west…
Aratus, Phaenomena1
On warm nights as you recline on a sun lounger or picnic blanket, you are greeted with the sight of a beautiful stellar swan flying above, concealing a wealth of cosmic treasures and secrets. Cygnus is mostly associated with summer when it is overhead, moving westwards in autumn, and then pointing northwards and setting in winter. If you are lucky enough to live in a place without light pollution, Cygnus marks one of the finest regions of the Milky Way, thick with stars, rich in clouds of galactic dust.
This is my favourite summer constellation. There’s something serene about this starry bird gliding through the dark that goes well with relaxed August evenings (some say it even looks a bit like a plane, perhaps flying to faraway holiday destinations), and it’s one of a few constellations that really looks like what it represents without too many leaps of the imagination. The star fields found there are so dense that looking at it with binoculars is like staring up at shimmering velvet, or it could be imagined as a soft, downy swan’s belly.
As both the folklore and science of Cygnus are particularly rich, this article is part 1 of Cygnus, with the second part coming in September (so Cygnus will also count as September’s constellation of the month). In August’s edition, I will recount various myths and tales associated with the constellation, and in September I’ll go more in depth into Cygnus’s individual stars and other astronomical objects. So this month is about stories and next month will be more about science.
Swan Songs
I suspect that Cygnus is a very ancient constellation that could pre-date the written word, because of its distinct ‘winged’ appearance and our ancestors’ appreciation and veneration for birds, our awe and even envy at their ability to fly. Indeed, before the Greeks came up with swan myths for this constellation, they called it Ornis, simply meaning ‘bird’. In one of the twelve labours of Heracles, the hero had to fight the dreaded Stymphalian Birds, with bronze feathers as sharp as blades, and a taste for human flesh. They would feast on anyone passing through their territory, so Heracles shot them with his arrows. The birds were then put into the stars as Cygnus, Aquila and Lyra (which in some interpretations is a vulture rather than a lyre), with the arrow constellation Sagitta nearby.
Eventually the Greeks (Eratosthenes, to be precise) decided that Ornis would be a swan, and came up with a few origin stories for how it became a constellation. One story suggests that Zeus, the notoriously adulterous king of the gods, took the form of a swan when he had an affair with the Spartan queen Leda. The result of this union was that Leda laid an egg, from which hatched two pairs of twins. They were the two brothers-Castor and Pollux, who would later become the Gemini constellation, and two sisters-Clytemnestra and Helen, who grew up to be Helen of Troy, the ‘face that launched thousand ships’ and started the Trojan War. What made their birth even more unusual (other than hatching from an egg!) is that the pairs of twins were of two fathers-Zeus, and Leda’s mortal husband, making one of each pair of twins mortal, and the other immortal.
There’s also a myth where Zeus seduced the goddess Nemesis, again in the guise of a swan, in cahoots with Aphrodite who took the form of an eagle. The deception here was that in normal circumstances, the eagle was considered Zeus’s bird and the swan was sacred to Aphrodite. So Nemesis, seeing the fierce eagle swooping down to attack the swan, protected the great white bird from the raptor’s claws. Hugging the swan tightly, she then realised too late that she had been tricked, and Zeus had his dirty way with her…and the whole episode was immortalised in the stars, as Zeus and Aphrodite’s forms became the constellations Cygnus and Aquila.
‘For Cycnus loved unhappy Phaethon
And sung his loss in poplar groves alone,
Beneath the sister shades to soothe his grief.
Heaven heard his song and hastened his relief,
And changed to snowy plumes his hoary hair,
And winged his flight to sing aloft in the air’
-Virgil
Another myth bypasses Zeus’s questionable relationships altogether, and concerns Phaethon, son of the sun god Helios. I have already mentioned the story of what happened when Phaethon took the reins of his father’s chariot (it didn’t end well)2, but there’s another version where Phaethon wasn’t alone, and was accompanied by his best friend, Cycnus. One day they decided to race chariots across the sky, with Phaethon driving the solar chariot of Helios, but then he lost control of the vehicle. Its fiery wheels and horses scorched sky and land, until Zeus put a stop to it with a thunderbolt. The strike sent both chariot and rider into the river Eridanus. Cycnus immediately halted at the riverbank where Phaethon fell, and prayed to the gods for help. He couldn’t swim, but he had to save his friend from drowning. So the gods turned him into a swan. In his new bird form, Cycnus stuck his long white neck far into the water and saw his Phaethon at the bottom, and dove in. He pulled the young man out, but it was too late. And he cried, his haunting lament being the origin of the ‘swan song’ that the bird was said to sing when their mate died. Touched by his friendship and grief, the gods then placed Cycnus into the sky as a constellation, where he could look down upon the river where his companion fell. It is said that a dark patch running through the Cygnus portion of the Milky Way represents the burn marks of Phaethon’s unruly chariot as it skidded through the sky. According to this myth, the reason why swans often dip their heads below water is in tribute to Cycnus, looking for Phaethon’s body.
Yet another myth says that the mournful swan song was not sung by Cycnus, but by Orpheus, the legendary musician, upon the death of his beloved Eurydice. In this version, Orpheus was transformed into a swan before being placed in the stars next to his harp, the nearby constellation Lyra.
A Flock of Folklore
It wasn’t just the Greeks who saw a bird in Cygnus’s stars, this is a common motif across the world from cultures far apart, possibly as a result of the constellation’s shape. The Arabs called Cygnus a hen. To the Norse it was Vedrfolnir, the sharp eyed hawk perched on the branches of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, (although some sources say this hawk was Aquila). To the Society Islanders of the Pacific it is a sea swallow, and to the Warao people of Venezuela it is a turkey. In Tonga it is known as Tuulalupe, the Pigeon Roost, and from southern hemisphere latitudes the constellation would have a different orientation, making it look like a bird perch, but the association with these stars and birds still stands.
Even though the Babylonian Mul.Apin star tablet called the constellations of Cygnus and neighbouring Cepheus the Panther of Nergal, god of the underworld, the idea of Cygnus as a bird might also originate in ancient Mesopotamia. To the Sumerians, it might have been the legendary bird Urukhaga, which in later times became Rukh or Roc, the giant bird from the story of Sinbad in the Arabian Nights. In that story, Sinbad hid in a roc’s nest, knowing that the bird could lead him to great treasure. When the roc returned to the nest, he grabbed onto the bird’s talons and was swept off to the Valley of Diamonds, and filled his bags with the precious gems found there.
Cygnus was also known as the Bird of the Forest, a kite rather than a swan, one of three Storm Raptors that fought against Marduk, the king of the Babylonian gods, in a myth reminiscent of Heracles fighting the Stymphalian Birds.
To the Ojibwe of North America, Cygnus is called Ajiijak, the Crane, located in Jiibay Ziibi, the River of Souls-what we call the Milky Way. In this part of the galaxy, as Indigenous author Annette S Lee explains, ‘there is a fork where a branch of starlight shoots off from the main stem but fades out quickly. (Ojibwe scholar and elder Carl Gawboy) explains that this path is for the souls that ‘did evil in the land of the living’ Just as the branch of the Milky Way disappears, so does the soul.’3 In addition, the crane represents one of the seven Ojibwe clans, and the Ajiijak constellation is a symbol of strength and leadership.4
Within Cygnus is a distinctive asterism shaped like a crooked crucifix, often known as the Northern Cross, a northerly counterpart to the more famous Southern Cross (or Crux). In parts of Europe including Sardinia, Romania and Belarus it is seen as a cross, sometimes associated with various saints. In Mongolia the cross-shaped stars form a bow and arrow, and to the Dakota it is known as the Salamander. The Maya of Central America might also have seen it as a cross, but one that’s older than Christianity’s later influence in that region. According to Susan Milbrath, a leafy cross-shaped image in a temple in the ancient Mayan city of Palenque, Mexico, might represent the Northern Cross asterism. The temple may also be aligned to the setting of Deneb, the principal star in Cygnus. This cross is thought to be a maize plant, thus linking the Maya’s most important crop to the stars.5
In China there were a few constellations in this region of sky, including a charioteer (an intriguing parallel with the story of Phaethon and Cycnus from Greece). But there’s also a tale that brings together stars of Cygnus with the legend of the stars Vega and Altair that I started previously, and this is the final part of this sweeping love story. (Read parts one and two in my articles on Lyra and Aquila.)
The Magpie Bridge
The last we heard from Zhi Nu the Weaver Girl and Niulang the Cowherd, they were married and deeply in love, but then suddenly separated by a river of stars. They cried, unable to reach each other from opposite sides of the river. Their tears came down in the summer rains, falling upon a sleeping flock of magpies. The birds woke up, hearing the laments of the lovers above. ‘We must do something!’ the lead magpie called out, gathering up a flock, and discussed a plan with the others. ‘We will all fly up to the sky, and make a bridge out of our bodies and feathers. We will invite all the magpies in the world to do so, and the bridge will be strong with all of us working as one. The lovers can meet again!’ so with a great rush of wings, all the magpies of the world flew up to the river in the sky, and made themselves into a great bridge. Once the magpies were in place, Zhi Nu and Niulang ran across the fluttering bridge and hugged. United once more. They spent a night in each other’s embrace, happily together. Eventually the birds had to return to earth, and the lovers went back to their sides of the river, saying their tearful goodbyes. But the magpies left with a promise-that on the seventh night of the seventh month, every year, they would return to form their bridge, and the couple could meet again. This is the origin of the Qixi festival in China, and the Tanabata festival in Japan. There is a belief that if it rained on the night of Tanabata, it was the tears of the lovers falling from the clouds.
The magpie bridge is represented by the stars we know as the wings of Cygnus, also known in Chinese astronomy as the celestial ford across the starry river of the Milky Way, crossing where it was said to be shallowest. This corresponds to the Cygnus Rift, a patch of sky that appears darker than much of the Milky Way. Even the symbolism of magpies, with their black and white wings, might refer to starless patches and brighter nebulas seen around the Summer Triangle.6
And this is an overview of the stories of Cygnus. I stopped short of going into folk beliefs related to swans themselves, these birds are very storied and have a lot of lore and myths attached to them. Next month I will return to this constellation to explore the stars and cosmic delights found here, including black holes, radio sources, supernova remnants, exoplanets, and possibly the most beautiful double star in the sky. In the meantime, look out for the starry swan on clear summer and autumn nights, and let your imagination soar. When I look at these stars, I definitely stick to the swan interpretation, but if I diverge from birds altogether, I could imagine it as a giant dragonfly. What do you see up there?
Part 2 coming in September!
Resources and further reading/listening
Tales of the Night Sky: Cygnus tells the Leda myth from Helen’s perspective, with an emphasis on the Trojan War
Tales of a Starry Night: Summer Triangle
Spirits Dancing, Travis Novitsky and Annette Lee, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023
Star Gods of the Maya, Susan Milbrath, University of Texas Press, 1999
So called ‘dark constellations’, night sky pictures made from gaps and voids between stars rather than the usual method of joining up the stars themselves, are often said to be a southern hemisphere phenomenon only. However, the magpie bridge could also be interpreted as a northern ‘dark constellation’ of sorts, and the same could also be said for the Greek Phaethon myth and Ojibwe traditions referring to this part of the sky, which also appear to refer to the Cygnus Rift.