Star Stories with Ian Lauer

Tonight we're looking at the constellation Corona Borealis, also known as the Northern Crown. And for more than a century, books, astronomy websites and planetarium stories have connected that circle with a Native American tale called The Celestial Sisters . It's usually described as a Shawnee story about Corona Borealis. Except I went back and found the oldest published version I could verify. And Corona Borealis isn't mentioned at all. And that sent me down one of those rabbit holes where every answer creates another problem. So join me as we retell this tale, and dive into what I found about it.

Tonight we're looking at the Big Dipper. It's a story about the Cosmic Hunt, and it comes from the Haudenosaunee, who resided in what's now New York and southern Ontario. This story contains a tiny, very specific detail that, when you first hear it, you wouldn’t even notice. But this tiny detail shows up in stories told on the other side of the world, by people who could not possibly have met. A researcher spent decades cataloguing tens of thousands of these stories specifically to find things like it. And when he wrote up what he found, he said there could only be one explanation or it. So when you listen to this story, keep a look out for that small detail.

Tonight we're looking at the Pleiades. The one I want to tell you tonight is from the Kokatha people, who live in the Great Victoria Desert in South Australia. The tale I’m going to tell is just going to be my way of telling it in a modern format. But just remember that those communities are still there and the story is still theirs. And to anyone who speaks these languages, my apologies in advance for how I handle the names. Now hidden inside it is something that a team of astronomers found that absolutely blew my mind when I learned about it. It is one of the single most impressive observations I have ever come across in any culture, anywhere. So stay with me through the story. Because the decode on this one is worth it.

Tonight we're looking at a constellation called Andromeda. When most people in the astro world hear that word, they immediately think of the Andromeda galaxy, not the constellation. But this story’s focus is on the tale behind Andromeda, which comes to us from Greek mythology. This story, which is just a small piece in a greater story, contains six constellations, all relatively close to each other in the night sky. When viewed together, tell a story from long ago. But this story goes back much further than most people think. So with that, let's find out how she ended up with the name, "The Chained Beauty".

Tonight's story comes to us from the Mexica, the people most of us call the Aztecs, a myth written down in the fifteen hundreds, based on a much older tradition. Many say there's a face on the Moon. But to the Aztecs, they saw a rabbit. And don't let the fact that it's a rabbit fool you, because this story is filled with drama, fire, sacrifice, and punishment. So let's go back to the beginning. And when I say the beginning, I mean the beginning of this world. The one we’re in today. Because this world where you and I live in…isn’t the first.

Tonight's story comes from the Nordic people. A story written down on the small island of Iceland. Almost everything we know about Norse mythology comes to us through two books that were written down in medieval Iceland. And inside those books is a story about what happens when, for a brief moment in time, the Sun goes dark. A total solar eclipse. So let's go back to the time of the people we call Vikings. Places of deep cold and freezing water. Let's go back to learn what they thought was happening when the Sun goes missing.

Tonight we’ll be telling a story about the stars and the Milky Way. A story about a Coyote, and how the stars in the sky came to be. We are looking at it through the eyes of the people most of us know as the Navajo, whose homeland stretches across much of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. To put yourself in this tale, I need you to do something first. Take everything you know about the world and set it down for a minute. Because where we are going, none of it exists. At least...not yet.

Tonight, we’re sitting under the band of light that we call the Milky Way, where we’ll be telling the tale of the legendary demigod Maui. He’s typically associated with the constellation Scorpius. But instead of a scorpion, the tail and stinger are Maui’s bloody fish hook. And, unlike many stories we’re used to, Maui doesn’t actually belong to one constellation. Instead, he moves through the sky, from one constellation to another. The story of Maui appears across Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, and dozens of islands scattered across the Pacific, each version with its own specific details and local flavor. It's a living tradition, so we must respect that. For tonight, I’ll be telling a blend of these myths as one story. And much like the life of other great characters, your Orions, your Thors, Maui’s story is rich and full of adventure. Maui’s full name, Maui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, translates to Maui-topknot-of-Taranga. It’s the perfect description for him when we talk about the astronomy of this myth, which, as always, we’ll reveal at the end of the story. But in terms of the myth, it’s a description of how this demigod came to be, from the hair of Taranga, his mother. However, Taranga isn’t excited about her baby. Instead, she’s going to do something that, for those of us today, is unthinkable. She’s about to abandon her baby in the ocean.

Tonight we're looking at the skies of the southern hemisphere. And I'm going to tell you a story that is so remarkable, it proves this tale is not just a myth…but a memory. The focus of tonight’s story is in the southern sky, where the stars wheel around an empty point. But it wasn't always empty. It's a tale about a great south star that once ruled over the southern sky. A southern pole star. And what happened when it lost its place in the sky. This tale comes from the Palawa people, aboriginals from the island of Tasmania, which is just south of mainland Australia. The Palawa people paid an unimaginable price for contact with the British, and that history matters when we share their stories. So let's go back. To the very beginning. When the world was young and the ice was thick and a powerful being made something so terrible and broken that his own brother had to do intervene. And that intervention would leave one of them dead.

Orion is probably the most recognizable star pattern in the night sky. Rivaling the Pleiades, rivaling the Big Dipper. The story of Orion is considered to be one of the oldest stories in the world. At least, some parts of it. Some say it’s thousands of years old , others say maybe even a hundred thousand. It makes you wonder…what parts of the myth are new…and what parts have the essence of the original telling? Tonight we're looking at him through the eyes of Greek mythology. And even within Greek tradition there are multiple versions. We're going to pull from some of the oldest sources we have, the ones written closest to the original telling. Someone who was gifted with so much…but still wanted more.

Tonight, we’re not looking at a particular constellation or pattern in the sky. Tonight, we’re looking at the thing we see every day: the Sun. And I’m going to tell you a story about why it has to fight its way into the sky every single morning. This story comes from the Aztecs, who built one of the greatest empires in the history of the Americas. Their civilization centered on Tenochtitlan, where Mexico City stands today. This tale is one of the most important myths they had. In fact, it was so important that they built their greatest temple in honor of it. It’s a myth that plays out in the sky every single day. And it all takes place on a mountain called Coatepec, the Hill of Serpents, which is where our story begins.

Tonight I’ll be telling a tale about a star in the sky that everyone has heard of. It’s not the biggest star, or the brightest. But for a long time, it was one of the most important stars in history. It’s a star called Polaris. Or as we know it as, the North Star. This story comes from a group whose ancestral lands span the high desert of the United States Southwest: the Paiute. They knew the landscape of the desert intimately, and they read the night sky the way you read a map. Because for them, it was one. But our story doesn’t start in the sky. It starts with a young mountain sheep who wanted nothing more than to make his father proud. This is Star Stories with Ian Lauer, where we sit together under the stars and retell ancient stories told about the night sky, and uncover the ancient knowledge hidden inside the world's oldest myths.

An ancient story from the Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes tells us that the stars of the Big Dipper is a memorial, written in the night sky for anyone willing to look up and listen. They saw an animal. A hunter, a father, a hero. They called him The Great Fisher. Not a fisherman with a rod and a line, but an animal. A fierce, weasel-like creature found in the forests of the Great Lakes. But tonight's story doesn't start with him. It starts with his son, Little Fisher. And a hunt in a frozen world that's about to change the world forever. This is Star Stories with Ian Lauer, where we sit together under the stars and uncover the ancient knowledge hidden inside the world's oldest myths.

Every culture in human history looked up at the same sky, and told stories about what they saw. Stories about Gods and Monsters, love and betrayal. Sacrifice and revenge. But those stories were more than entertainment. Encoded in them were things like calendars, star maps, even survival guides. Knowledge so important that the only way to protect it was to embed it inside a story. These are some of the greatest stories ever told. And they were written…in the stars. I'm Ian Lauer, and I've spent my career studying the night sky. First through astrophysics, and now as a storyteller. And this is Star Stories. Each episode, I’ll immerse you in one of these ancient myths. We’ll sit together under the stars and I’ll tell you a story: Unfiltered, the way it was meant to be heard…including all the gory, and sometimes ridiculous details. And at the end, we’ll uncover the science and knowledge these stories were intended to pass on. Star Stories by Ian Lauer. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.