When you look into the night sky this week, you’ll see a beautiful line up of planets and stars that lend themselves to a French fairy tale by the Count de Caylus from the 17th century known as “The Fairy Gifts.”
Here’s the set up: about an hour after sunset, Jupiter will appear high in the southwest, beneath the rear flank of the lion. With Jupiter as the starting point, follow a straight line angling toward the horizon in the southeast, and you will bump right into the brilliantly red planet Mars and then the golden planet Saturn. On the way you’ll pass by the star Spica in Virgo and the claws of the Scorpion.
This imaginary line actually has a technical name: it’s referred to as the ecliptic. It’s the path through the zodiac that all the planets, the Moon, and apparently the Sun seem to follow, each one according to their own rhythm. The planets never stray from this path of the ecliptic, so it’s easy to imagine them having reunions with all the stars they meet along the way~and here’s where the story comes in:
There’s a flower fairy, and she has the charge of all the young princes and princesses, kind of in a “fairy tale finishing school” you could say. Now, before each one is old enough to venture out in to the world on their own, the Flower Fairy bestows on them a gift of their choosing. Some choose beauty, others riches, some choose power.
The Flower Fairy’s favorite charge is dear Sylvia, and in the story, Sylvia is about to come of age, so the Fairy decides that rather than just send her into the world with an uninformed gift, she will have Sylvia visit some of the other princes and princesses to see how they’re getting along with the gifts they chose.
It’s a delightful little tale with an appropriate fairy tale ending that can be read out under the stars this week where you can imagine the planets lining up one by one along the ecliptic like the princes and princesses, each one giving expression to the gift they’ve received from the Flower Fairy.
Find a link to the tale at the Interlochen Public Radio website, and the story overhead in the stars!
The Fairy Gifts from Andrew Lang's Green Fairy Book, as retold from the Comte de Caylus: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/lfb/gn/gnfb09.htm
Ecliptic detail image from Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar for June, 2016, available by subscription at http://www.abramsplanetarium.org/skycalendar/