Ultimate Unofficial Guide

[lorien_eve <natmichaels@hotmail.com>]

Thanks for defending the rest of us who didn't know what Sirius was, 
either! I knew the name related to a constellation or star or 
*something*, but I didn't know it was the dog star. Like you, I only 
found that out once I joined a HP group. Same thing with Remus. I 
read "Mythology" by Edith Hamilton probably ten years ago, and while 
I know several Greek gods, I can't remember all the other stories, 
places, and people. I should've caught that "Lupin" was a Latin root 
for "wolf." That was something I actually *should* have remembered 
from studying language root words. But oh, well. I don't think it's 
something that's just *common* knowledge.

Lorien_Eve 


--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Beth <belleps at o...> wrote:
> At 01:06 PM 2/24/03 +0000, you wrote:
> >Bullfinch's Guide of sorts for
> >the literary allusions, all of which are pretty easy to discover, 
if
> >not patently obvious from the start (again, does she really think 
we
> >need to be *told* that Sirius is the dogstar, and also 
that "Sirius
> >Black" means Black Dog? Maybe the twelve-year-olds, but... Yeesh).
> 
> (This isn't a comment on the book -- I don't think I've seen this 
one.)
> 
> Well <ahem>, actually <blush>, I didn't get the references about 
Sirius 
> until I started reading HPfGU. One of my roommates in college 
(many, many 
> years ago) used to get VERY frustrated with me. She was a teaching 
> assistant for astronomy, and she'd walk out at night and say 
things like, 
> "Oooo, look! Cassiopeia, Orion, the Seven Sisters...." and I'd 
look up and 
> say, "Stars! Pretty!" <grin> So Sirius being the dogstar was 
something that 
> I had heard somewhere along the way, but I just didn't think of it 
> regarding HP until someone pointed it out.
> 
> bel