The mythologies behind Ursa Major and the Big Dipper are not limited to bears. Other names, among others, include the Wagon and Charles’ Wain. This deviation in nomenclature is as ancient as the myths behind them. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus looks to the night sky as he is leaving Calypso’s island to see “the Great Bear that men call the Wain” (1). The Sumerians and Babylonians, among the oldest civilizations in the world, knew the asterism as Margidda, “the long chariot” or “the great wagon” (2, 3). For those of us who see the Big Dipper as, well, a dipper, it shouldn’t be too hard to reorient our minds to this interpretation. The bowl becomes the wagon bed, and the handle becomes a wagon shaft or a set of reins attached to a draft animal. This imagery is particularly popular in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, and we will be exploring a handful of these stories today.
We’ll start with Charles’ Wain, as the Big Dipper used to be called in the United Kingdom. Who is Charles and what is a wain? The name is derived from the Old English “Carlswæn” for “Charles’ Wagon.” The name “Charles” is probably a reference to Charles the Great, better known as Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. Wagon seems a bit mundane for a supposedly great ruler, so altogether the asterism can be romantically referred to as Charlemagne’s Chariot. (4)
The origin of the Old English name likely lies in Scandinavia, where the Big Dipper is known as “Karlavagnen” for “Karl’s Wagon.” The association with Charlemagne, or Karl the Great in the Nordic countries, remains today, but this may be a Christian revision. In the Germanic languages, the name Karl or Charles came from the word for “man” long before it had any association with the emperor. In fact, the current German name for the asterism is “Großer Wagen” for “Great Wagon” with no clear association with Charlemagne (4). Furthermore, it seems that the old Norse name for the Big Dipper, “Karlsvagn,” directly paired with the name for the Little Dipper, “Kvennsvagn,” for “man’s wagon” and “woman’s wagon,” respectively. The god Thor and goddess Freya were known to have ridden chariots, so they could have been the original riders. It is possible that the Big Dipper’s association with Charlemagne arose as Scandinavia transitioned from Norse paganism to Christendom in the 11th century (5). (6)
Not too far away to the east, the Balts also looked to the Big Dipper and saw a godly wagon. They call the asterism “Perkūno Ratai” for “Perkūnas’ Chariot.” Perkūnas was the Baltic sky god of thunder and storms, and his name literally means “the thunder.” He traveled across the sky in his flaming chariot, wielding thunderbolts in one hand and a great stone axe in the other. In the Baltic pantheon, he was second only to the chief god Dievas. When I first read this story of a thunderbolt-hurling, blunt-object-wielding, chariot-riding, right-hand-man god, I was immediately reminded of the Nordic god Thor, who was second in command to his father Odin. Of course, the Norse and the Balts had and have separate cultures, languages, and pantheons. Due to their close geographic proximity, however, I find it hard to believe that they did not have some influence on each other. The similarities between Perkūnas and Thor seem too striking to ignore. Furthermore, since Perkūno Ratai certainly refers to the chariot of Perkūnas, perhaps this is further evidence that Karlavagnen originally referred to the chariot of Thor and not that of Charlemagne. (7)
For our final story, we will move southwards to Hungary, where the Big Dipper is known as “Göncölszekér” for “Göncöl's Wagon.” In the previous stories, I took the liberty in interpreting wagons as chariots, for I felt they better suited the imagery one associates with medieval emperors and thunder gods. In this instance, however, I will refer to Göncöl's Wagon as such. In Hungarian mythology, Göncöl was not a vengeful deity prone to reigning fire down from his chariot, but a miracle-working demigod with a wagon full of healing medicines. He is depicted as a táltos, a shamanistic mediator between the living and the dead, although unfortunately many of the traditional characteristics of these figures have been lost to time. They could typically be identified as possessing an extra bone (somewhere) and being able to speak not long after birth, but these had to be kept secret until the young táltos went on their first journey to the otherworld at the age of seven (8). Göncöl knew much of the secrets of life and death, and he used his knowledge to heal anyone he could on his journeys. He could even talk to trees and animals. One day, however, the rod of his wagon broke. He called out to people to help him, just as he had been helping them for years, but no one came to his aid. Disappointed, Göncöl snapped the reins and flew the broken wagon into the night sky. To this day, it remains an eternal reminder to help others, demigod or not, especially when they have given everything to help you. (9)
References
Homer, Odyssey 313-387
Davis, G. A., Jr. (1946). The Origin of Ursa Major. Popular Astronomy, Volume 54, 111-115. http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1946PA.....54..111D&defaultprint=YES&filetype=.pdf
Hunger, H., & Steele, J. M. (2019). The Babylonian astronomical compendium MUL.APIN.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/religion_01.shtml
Persson, Jonas. (2017). Norse constellations. 10.13140/RG.2.2.15662.92483.
Straižys, V. & Klimka, L. (1997). The Cosmology of the Ancient Balts. Journal for the History of Astronomy, Archaeoastronomy Supplement, Volume 28, S58-S81. http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1997JHAS...28...57S&defaultprint=YES&filetype=.pdf
Vehrer, Adél. (2018). Táltos, Witch, Incubus, Succubus and Other Beings in Hungarian Folklore and Mythology. Polgári szemle. 14. 411-423. 10.24307/psz.2018.0426.
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