Invisible archer

If arrows are shooting down from the night sky (Orionid meteorite shower)...

...there must be an [invisible] archer (Orion) standing somewhere up there shooting them out of his bow...

An example of an ancient "scientific" explanation for an annual natural event...

Of course, if you look at the stars that form Orion constellation, this is what you see...

The lines were added by people to form the imagined archer which rises in the night sky as the arrow like meteorites, the debris from the Halley comet, start shooting down on earth from Orionid radiant. Right above Orion...

Anyway, this is how some people saw and explained Orionid meteor shower, which starts every year in Sep, and ends in Nov, and peaks in mid Oct.

Some other people did't see arrows coming down from the sky. They saw clubs...

And so

Why was Orion seen by Ancient Greeks as a "the greatest hunter" armed with a cudgel (club)? And why do Bulgarians call Orion "cudgels (clubs)" and why do Serbs call Orion "Baba's (grandmother's) sticks" and all the stars "Baba's (grandmother's) cudgels (clubs)"? I talked about this in my post "Grandmother's cudgels (clubs)"

You might also like this article, "Jack and magic beans", about (thunder) giants living in the sky...And the possibility that our myths about sky gods originated as the best scientific explanation for observed phenomena. If huge rocks are falling from the sky, someone is throwing them...So, giants living in the sky...

A 15th-century engraving depicts the town of Ensisheim in present-day France being struck by a thunderbolt as a giant rock...

Now guess what happens in Mesopotamia in Oct/Nov? The dry season, the season of drought and death, ends when the first rains arrive...In Oct/Nov...

And these rains are brought by Ninurta/Ningirsu...The old storm god, the old god of rain...The same guy, depicted here with a bow, killing the blazing sun that causes drought...From my post "Adda seal"...

Why was Ninurta/Ningirsu depicted as an archer? Well, originally, I thought that it is because when it rains, you can see a rainbow. And in Mesopotamia this is only between Oct/Nov and Apr/May...

In Hindu mythology, rainbow or the Indradhanush is the bow of Lord Indra, the god of lightning, thunder and rains.

But the Mesopotamians didn't see the rainbow as Ninurta/Ningirsu's bow. They saw it as the rain/thunder god's crown/tiara...

So why then? Maybe because just before the rains arrive to Mesopotamia, the arrows start shooting from the sky announcing the arrival of the Sky god, Ninurta/Ningirsu...The bringer of rain...The Great Archer...Who also shoots thunder and lightning bolts...

Anyway, that's that...Hope you enjoyed it 🙂