The Fixed Stars

Vega

Wega, Alpha Lyrae, Vultur Cadens

The swooping eagle, from the Arabic an-nasr al-waqi. It stands at about 16° Capricorn (tropical).

One of the fifteen Behenian stars

The harp star, blue-white and generous, tuning the whole summer sky.

The fifth-brightest star of the night and the jewel of the Lyre, named for the diving eagle the Arabs saw where the Greeks heard music. Robson gives it the nature of Venus and Mercury and a gracious character, beneficence, ideality, hopefulness, refinement, and a streak of changeability. It is one of the fifteen Behenian stars of the old talisman books, and it too has held the pole, and will hold it again some twelve thousand years from now.

In the Vedic sky Vega is Abhijit, the twenty-eighth, intercalary nakshatra, which stands outside the twenty-seven-fold wheel used here, so no nakshatra key is given.