The Fixed Stars

Sirius

Alpha Canis Majoris, the Dog Star, Sothis, Aschere

The scorcher, the searing one. It stands at about 14° Cancer (tropical).

One of the fifteen Behenian stars

The brightest star of the whole sky, the Dog that scorches the height of summer.

Sirius is the brightest fixed star in the heavens and the heart of the Great Dog. To the Egyptians it was Sothis, whose heliacal rising foretold the flooding of the Nile and opened the year; its return at dawn also names the dog days of high summer. Robson gives it the nature of Jupiter and Mars and makes its natives honorable, proud, and fond of the guardian's office, with wealth and faithful friends but a danger of pride and of the bite of dogs. It is one of the fifteen Behenian stars of the talisman books, where its stone is the beryl and its herbs savine, mugwort, and dragonwort, and its image works for the goodwill of the airy spirits and the favor of the powerful.