and have occult power. They are good scholars, bright, genial, and witty.
The natal gem of Aries is the bloodstone, the symbol of good luck; the natal flower, the violet; the metal, iron.
Alpha Arietis was called "Hamal" or "Hamel" by the Arabs, meaning a sheep, and the name "Al-Nath" has also been found for it on some of the ancient Arabic globes. "Arietis" is another name for this star.
Among the Greeks in early times, Hamal held the important office of sunrise herald, at the vernal equinox. In Ptolemy's list it is described as "The one above the head" (of the Ram), and astrologers regarded it as dangerous and evil, denoting bodily hurts.
Brown asserts that the stellar Ram was in the first place only the star Hamal, the constellation being formed around It afterwards. Chaucer refers to the star as "Alnath," that is to say the "horn push," a name more commonly associated with the star in the tip of the northern horn of the Bull, a star common to the constellations Taurus and Auriga.
Other Euphratean names for this star have been "Lu-lim" or "Lu-nit," the ram's eye, and "Simal," the Horn Star. It was also called " Anuv" and "Ku," meaning the Prince or the Leading One, the ram that led the heavenly flock.
Of the Grecian temples, at least eight, at various places, and of dates ranging from 1580 to 360 b.c. were oriented to this star, and it is the only star to which Milton makes individual allusion.
Hamal is much used in navigation in connection with lunar observations, and culminates at 9 p.m. on the 11th of December. It is approaching our system at the rate of nine miles per second. According to Miss Clerke,[1] Hamal is distant from the earth about forty light years.
The star Beta Arietis was known to the Arabs as "Shara-
- ↑ The System of the Stars, by Agnes M. Clerke.
