The Seven Stars
Menelmacar and Remmirath
I live in a city where the sky is often orange when cloudy and when it isn’t cloudy, we can generally only see the very brightest stars. It does make me cross that light pollution spoils the night skies for so many of us, so I was strangely pleased to see the Northern Hemisphere constellations reflected in lotro’s night skies.
The lotro lorebook entries explain that our constellations are the same as the constellations in middle-earth but that we now know them by different names:
(current name ~ middle earth name)
Orion ~ Menelmacar, the Swordsman of the Sky
the Pleiades ~ Remmirath, the Netted Stars
Big Dipper ~ the Seven Stars, the Sickle of the Valar
The sun was known as Anor and the moon as Ithil. Have you spotted any other constellations?
In the silmarillion it is told how the moon and sun were piloted by Maia and how the moon-maia loved the sun-maia terrible and pursed her until he was burnt and the forces unleashed threatened the earth below and the Valar had to strictly separate them, an event which created an equal measure of day and night with two twilight periods where their light mixed across the land.
Guess who’d been listening to the abridged version on his way to work lately ;-D
ah beautiful – I’d forgotten that detail thank you
I really enjoyed reading the silmarillion (and I listened to the tolkien professor’s podcasts as well which really helped 
)
I meant unabridged – read by Martin Shaw – I love it!
I’ve always wondered about ME’s constellations–and I’ve especially wondered just what the Seven Stars were. Now I know what to look for! Wonderful post
thank you
glad it was useful!