African tribe regarded these stars and those representing the sword of Orion, hanging from the Belt, as "three old widows following up three old men."
The Basuto tribe called the Belt stars "Three Pigs." They have also been known as "the Three Kings," "the Ell," and "the Yard," on account of the line joining them being just three degrees long.
Tennyson thus refers to these stars:
That glitter burnished by the frosty dark.
The Germans designated them "Jacobstaff," "the Staff of St.James," and "the Three Mowers."
The Chinese knew them as "a weighing beam," with the stars in the sword as a weight at one end.
The Greenlanders called them "the Seal Hunters," bewildered when lost at sea, and transferred together to the sky; and to the Eskimos these stars represented the three steps cut in a steep snow bank by some celestial Eskimo to enable him to reach the top.
The early Hindus called these stars "the three-jointed arrow," and the native Australians regarded them as "young mendancing."
In comparatively modern times, 1807, the University of Leipsic, disregarding all ancient appellations, christened these famous stars "Napoleon." An Englishman retaliated by calling them "Nelson," but these names have not been recognised by the world at large, nor do they appear on star maps or globes.
Seamen have called these stars "the Golden Yard Arm."
Tennyson simply referred to them as "the three stars."
In mythology they represent the arrow that despatched Orion. Other names for them are "The Rake," "the Three Marys," and "Our Lady's Wand."
