What is Orion (mythology)?
[[File:Uranometria orion.jpg|thumb|An engraving of Orion from [[Johann Bayer]]'s [[Uranometria]], 1603 ([[United States Naval Observatory|US Naval Observatory]] Library)]] In [[Greek mythology]], '''Orion''' is a [[giant]] [[hunter]]. When he goes hunting, his [[dog]]s [[Sirius (mythology)|Sirius]] and [[Procyon (mythology)|Procycon]] accompany him. He lived in [[Boeotia]] and [[Crete]]. People do not agree about his parents: Sometimes he is said to be the son of [[Poseidon]] and the [[gorgon]] [[Euryale]], at other times, he is said to have three fathers, Poseidon, [[Zeus]] and either [[Hermes]] or [[Ares]]. All three mixed their sperm in a bag of animal hide. Zeus gave him his craving for [[erotic]] adventures, from Poseidon, he got the ability to walk on water. He is married to [[Side (mythology)|Side]], but [[Hera]] cast his wife into the [[Tartaros]], because Side was too proud of her own beauty. In Greek literature he first appears as a great hunter in [[Homer]]'s epic the ''[[Odyssey]]'', where [[Odysseus]] sees his shade in the [[underworld]]. The bare bones of his story are told by the [[Hellenistic civilization|Hellenistic]] and Roman collectors of myths, but there is no literary version of his adventures. Other heroes' stories are told, for example [[Jason]] in [[Apollonius of Rhodes]]' ''[[Argonautica]]'' or [[Euripides]]' ''[[Medea]]''. The entry in [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Fasti (poem)|Fasti]]'' for [[May 11]] is a poem on the birth of Orion, but that is one version of a single story. The surviving fragments of [[legend]] have provided a fertile field for speculation about Greek prehistory and myth. Orion served several roles in [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] culture. The story of the adventures of Orion, the hunter, is the one on which we have the most evidence (and even on that not very much); he is also the [[personification]] of the [[Orion (constellation)|constellation]] of the same name; he was venerated as a [[Greek hero cult|hero]], in the Greek sense, in the region of Boeotia; and there is one