b Bet Origins: Bet is derived from the old French abeter meaning "to urge on." In Literature: • "'What'll you bet?' said Jimmy. The Strollers began to sit up and take notice. The magic word 'bet,' when uttered in that room, had rarely failed to add a zest to life." -- P.G. Wodehouse, The Intrusion of Jimmy (1910) Betelgeuse Mystique: "Rigel, Betelgeuse, and Orion, too, spoke to her. There was no finer church, no finer choir, than the stars speaking in silence." 0 Star names are sometimes invoked "as the words of a prayer" as one abandons oneself to the vastness overhead and seeks to lose oneself below: "Betelgeuse. Sirius. Orion. Antares. The sky is very large, and you are very small. ... The Pleiades. Cassiopeia. Taurus. Heaven is wide, and you are very small. Dead, but none the less powerful for being dead. . . . [He] turned his hands palm upward, in gesture of surrender. He reached beyond the stars, searching."21 "And I search among the signs / For the flare, the polestar, pulley toward the edge." Origins: Betelgeuse is a giant red star, Alpha Orionis, in the constellation of Orion. The star's name is a corruption of the Arabic yad al jawza ("hand of the central one" or "hand of the great one"). Facts: Chanting the name Betelgeuse conjures a trickster spirit in the Tim Burton film Beetlejuice (1988). In H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Dweller in Darkness" (1944), Betelgeuse is home to the Elder Gods. In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978), the character Ford Prefect comes from a planet "in the vicinity of Betelgeuse." Variations and Incantations: • Al Mankib This is an Arabic name for the star meaning "the shoulder," describing the star's position in the constellation. • Bedalgeuze This is the Medieval Latin spelling of the star's name. 20 Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale (198 ) 21 Diana Gabaldon, Drums of Autumn (1997) 22 Ruth Stone, "On the Mountain," Book of Women Poets (1992)