The legend as given here is from "Dictionary of Ancient Deities" by Patricia Turner & Charles Russell Coulter, pg. 365. Oxford Press, 2000.

ORION - Oarion, Urion (Greek)

Hunter. Constellation. Orion, a famous giant and hunter, was the son of the sea god Poseidon or Hyrieus, the king of Hyria and Euryale, the daughter of Minos. He became the father of the nymph Menodice. In a later account of his birth it is said that Hyreius, king of Thrace or of Boeotian Hyria, who had been a gracious host to Poseidon, Hermes, and Zeus, was asked by the gods how they could repay him. He asked for a child. They urinated on the hide of a bull and buried it. After nine months, Orion grew up on the spot and was named Urion by his father. Orion married Side, who bragged that she was more beautiful than Hera. It is possible that this did not sit well with the jealous goddess, for Side died young and was sent to the Underworld.

The idea of Orion being a son of three gods who represent the elements of (respectively) Water, Air and Earth is an interesting one. Orion, composed of stars then becomes Fire. Being born from the urine of these three gods is a sort of "male divine virgin birth" that is not often seen in mythology but is not uncommon. Kartikkeya (Skanda) the son of Shiva is said to have been born from a spurt of Shiva's semen which contained 7 drops. These drops fell into the river and became Kartikkeya, who was then raised by the Pleiades (Kartik). The river, in this case is the Milky Way. Orion sits near to the Pleiades, so we have a little cross-referencing of myth here. He also sits near Taurus the Bull and the gods are said to be urinating on the hide of a bull. The name of his first wife -- Side (sy-dee) is also similar to the name of the Hindu goddess Siddhi (see-dee) or Success, who is sometimes said to be the sister of Kartikkeya. Also similar to the Siddhe (shee) or Tuatha de Danaan. The Tuatha de Danaan are "the sons of the goddess" as are the bene elohim (Hebrew) and the Adityas or Danavas (Hindu), who are also said to be giants and artificers.

Orion met Meriope, the daughter of Oenopion, king of Chios, and asked for her hand in marriage. As the price of betrothal Oenopion set the task, which Orion quickly accomplished, of clearing his island of wild beasts. Impatient, Orion did not wait for the wedding, he raped his fiancee and reaped the wrath of her father, who blinded him and threw him out on the beach. Orion, who had the power to walk on water, found his way to Lemnos. Out of pity, the god of fire and metalworking, Hephaestus, offered him the services of his servant, the dwarf Cedalon, who mounted on the shoulders of the giant guided him to the sun where his eyesight was restored by the sun god Helius (some say Apollo).

Chios? Is this an allusion to chaos (khaos)? I ask this question, because there are many legends regarding the "lost sister of the Pleiades", Meriope. The Pleiades are called the Seven Sisters, but only six are visible. Many cultures have explained this by weaving stories to the effect that she left her 'husband' (whatever his name in the story) and went to live with the Seven Sages, who are the stars of Ursa Major or the Big Dipper that revolve around the northern pole-star. It would seem that perhaps this star exploded and 'disappeared', possibly hurtling off fragmented toward the northern portion of the heavens. Every year, in August, comes the Perseid meteor showers and hundreds if not thousands of meteor trails adorn the night sky. Perseus sits in the same area of the sky as Orion, Taurus, the Pleiades and Hyades. This is a very active region of the sky and could seem to be chaotic in terms of the amount of astronomical phenomena going on in it.

The story of Orion asking for Meriope's hand in marriage and not waiting until the wedding night to have her is very similar to a story in Genesis, where Shechem asks for the hand of Dinah, a daughter of Jacob and sister to Jacob's sons Levi and Simeon. Shechem is so in love and infatuated with Dinah, that he too does not wait for the wedding night and 'rapes' her. (She's supposedly staying at his house at the time, so can't say if it wasn't a mutual kind of thing.) Simeon and Levi become enraged over this and go to the town and supposedly kill every man-jack there and steal all the women and animals for their own. (How very 'Hebrew') One wonders how two men accomplished all this! Is this a case of the writers of the Bible borrowing again (this time) from Greek mythology? Possibly. And it possibly indicates that Genesis was not written as long ago as we are led to believe. I say this, because at the time the books of the Bible were being assembled and written at Qumran, Greek occupation of the Holy Land was in full swing. The Greeks ruled and enforced their ways and ideals on the Hebrews. Not to think that the writer or writers of Genesis were not aware of the myths of the Greeks and their 'blasphemies', is denial of their great knowledge and adept usage of myth.

Orion's ability to 'walk on' or under water is seen in his relation to the Milky Way, as the head of the constellation is just into the edge of said river of stars.

Some say Orion became drunk and attacked Merope, others say the King made Orion drunk and put out Orion's eyes while he slept. Orion's blindness explains why the stars in the head of Orion are faint.

Orion regained his eyesight when he asked to be led in the direction of the rising sun. (At first glance this doesn't appear to make sense: when Orion is visible, he is always running toward the west, not east. It might make more sense in the context of precession of the equinoxes.) [ from http://www.scivis.com/AC/stor/orion.html ]

Like Samson, Orion is also blinded. While Samson does not recover his sight, physically, he does recover his 'light' and finds his way back to his innate divinity.

His eyesight restored but his judgement still cloudy, he chased the daughters of Atlas, the Pleiades and possibly their mother, Pleione (whom he didn't recognize as his great grandmother), around for years until they became exhausted. To give them relief, Zeus placed them among the stars. Orion and his dog Sirius joined the moon goddess Artemis for the more traditional type of hunting. Old habits die hard; it is said that she shot him either for raping her or her attendant Opis, or out of jealousy because he slept with Eos, the goddess of dawn. In another less dramatic version, he was stung by a monster scorpion sent by the goddess Gaea (earth) and died. After death Orion became the brightest constellation in the sky along with Sirius, his faithful dog.

Orion is also equated with Osiris in Egyptian myth. People such as Robert Bauval have theorized that the three great pyramids of Egypt are an earthly reflection of the three stars of Orion's belt. I personally agree with this theory. Osiris was the god of laws, agriculture and religion. The same source as the Orion myth says of Osiris:

His vegetable aspect is symbolized by corn and many effigies made of corn husks and corn-stuffed images bandaged like mummies have been located. Osiris is thought to have been the first mummy. Like the corn, he was first trodden in the earth (burial), then rested in the dark and the new seed germinated (resurrection). Osiris was also a tree spirit. In the hall of Osiris at Denderah, the coffin containing the hawk-headed mummy of Osiris is depicted as enclosed within a tree.... He owas regularly identified with the bull of Apis of Memphis and the bull Mnevis of Heliopolis. His name may mean "place of the eye" which would correspond with his written sign.

Here, we find the connections made with Dumuzi/Tammuz and Dionysius/Bacchus, as well as the Death of the Corn King, and the death of John Barleycorn. Connecting these divinities to Shemyaza also makes him a 'corn king', the dying and resurrected one. While all this may seem confusing and hopelessly intertwined, it's not. Not at all. They all represent a single concept on both the earthly and spiritual planes. One must die to be reborn in a purer form. That death may be symbolic. It is the death of the Phoenix, who is reborn from the pyre of it's own ashes. Osiris is reborn in a purer form and becomes immortal. Gnostically speaking, the ideal is to die symbolically and reach one's enlightenment while still living in the flesh. This is refered to in the song Exodus (Zoon), when McCoy sings "Rise, rise, rise alive!".

We also see the connections with the bulls Apis and Mnevis, who are symbolized in the sky by Taurus. There is also a reference to Osiris's 'tree aspect'. Recall that the Watchers were dreamed of as two hundred trees in the Book of Giants . They were also called 'trees' or 'cedars' because of their giant stature and their knowledge. Tree spirits in many pantheons are seen as tutelary (teaching) dieties, which is exactly what the Watchers are. They "taught men the worthless secrets of heaven" [Enoch]

Sirius - the binary star that follows at Orion's heels and is said to be the 'head of the dog', is also connected with Isis....but that may have to be another page ;-)

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