Originally posted to Shrubbery, 26 Sept 2003
Callisto was a beautiful woman (aren't they all in these stories) who unfortunately caught the eye of Zeus, king of all the gods. Zeus had a habit of falling for mortal women, and let's just say his wife Hera wasn't thrilled with the whole process.
When Callisto's son Arcas was born, Hera decided she was going to punish the woman for, er, hanging around her husband. One day when Callisto was out walking in the forest she suddenly felt odd. When she put her hand to her face to see if she was getting a fever her hand seemed very wrong. Pulling it back to have a look, she was astonished to find that it was huge and hairy with frighteningly long claws. She rushed to a still pond to have a look at herself and found that instead of a lovely face she had a horrid, long, slobbery jaw. The woman screamed, but all that came out was a terrifying roar. Hera had turned her into a huge bear! Callisto was so afraid of her new self that she ran off into the forest before anyone could see her.
Years passed and Arcas grew into a fine young man. Callisto hadn't had the courage to try to tell her son what had happened but she still longed to see him and spent most of her time at the edge of the village waiting for a glimpse of her boy. The other animals in the forest were naturally afraid of the huge bear, and bit by bit moved farther away from the village for their own safety.
The problem was that the people of the village depended on hunting to feed themselves, and the hunters were finding it harder and harder to find game near the village. No one could figure out why the animals had left (Callisto always ran and hid whenever she spied villagers nearing her) until one day a returning hunter got a look at the bear pacing at the edge of the forest. The bear must have scared away all the game!
A village meeting was called, and the most skilled hunters were sent out to kill the bear that was frightening their food. Among them was Arcas, who had become one of the better hunters even though he was still fairly young.
The men headed out in search of the bear, but when Callisto saw her son coming toward her she forgot for a moment what she looked like and ran to him crying, "son! Son! Do you know me?" To the hunters, though, this sounded like vicious growling and roaring, and even the bravest among them was soon running for his life as the bear came closer.
All but Arcas.
Arcas was terrified, but as he knew how important it was to his village he stood his ground, nocked an arrow, took aim...
Well, just about this time Zeus finally remembered his old flame Callisto and saw what trouble she was in. Before Arcas could kill his own mother Zeus changed him into a bear as well (it made sense to Zeus...). Callisto was happily reunited with her boy and could finally tell him why she had disappeared. For his part, Arcas was bewildered at first but soon accepted his new form.
The two bears lived happily together in the forest for a while, but Hera soon realised that her plan to have Arcas kill Callisto had been foiled. Hera was extremely good at holding a grudge, so she soon made new plans to kill the bears. She sent the hunter Bootes and his hunting dogs to track the two bears down. The dogs hassled the bears through the forest to point of exhaustion until Zeus noticed what was going on (he'd been... erm... somewhat distracted). He reached down, grabbed the bears by their tails, and hauled them up into the sky where they'd be safe. The weight was a bit much for those stubby tails, though, and the bears in the sky have stretched-out tails to this day because of the trip up there.
Now, Callisto and Arcas were actually quite happy up in the sky but Hera was furious! Not only had her plans been spoiled, but now the beautiful Callisto and her son were being admired every night by the people on earth. Hera went to her brother Poseidon (the sea god) and asked him to send his waters up to the sky to drown the two bears. Poseidon knew better than to go against the will of Zeus but he offered his sister a compromise. He pulled the seas down and away from the part of the sky where the bears were living, so that to this day they can never get a drink (that is, they never set in the northern hemisphere) even though most other sky pictures enter the water each and every night.
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