Vega in Fiction - General Uses of Vega

General Uses of Vega

Vega may be referred to in fictional works for its metaphorical (meta) or mythological (myth) associations, or else as a bright point of light in the sky of the Earth, but not as a location in space or the center of a planetary system.

• Qi Xi (206 BCE – 220 CE), "the night of sevens," festival honoring a Han dynasty legend. The young cowherd Niú Láng (Altair) meets by chance and marries Zhī Nŭ the weaver girl (Vega), seventh daughter of the Celestial Goddess; the two live happily together and have a pair of children (his flanking stars β and γ Aquilae). The Goddess, furious that Zhī Nŭ has married a mere mortal, orders her home to resume her day job weaving colorful clouds. Niú Láng follows her, but is not unnoticed by the mother, who angrily uses her hairpin to scratch a wide river in the sky—the Milky Way—to separate the lovers forever. Once a year all the magpies in the world take pity on them and fly up to heaven to form a bridge over the star Deneb in Cygnus, so that they may be together for a single night (see graphic). (myth)
• "French and English Tragedy" (1823), magazine article by the Rev. George Croly. Croley, in describing the white nights of St. Petersburg, writes To the ordinary eye the heavens, though clear, are almost starless; only brilliants like Vega and Arcturus have power to make an impression upon the retina. Summer midnight in the Russian capital is thus a simple twilight... (sky)
• Emily's Quest (1927), novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery (previously author of Anne of Green Gables et seq). Emily Starr and Teddy Kent have been friends since childhood, and as Teddy is about to leave to further his education as an artist, Emily believes that their friendship is blossoming into something more. On their last night together she sighs, Look at that star, Teddy – the one just over the youngest Princess. It’s Vega of the Lyre. I’ve always loved it. It’s my dearest among the stars. They vow to think of each other when they see this symbol of faithfulness in the heavens. (sky, meta)
• "Talk of the Town" (1933), New Yorker feuilleton by E. B. White. White describes the "telescope man" of Bryant Park in New York: He charges ten cents for a look at the tip of the Empire State Building, and only five cents for a look at Vega, star of the first magnitude. The tip of the building, being not far away, is pleasantly comprehensible to his customers. Vega, being three times as remote as Sirius, merely gives them a feeling of cosmic despondency, a dizzy, uneasy moment in West Forty-second Street. They find it more comforting to pay five cents more, and not see so far. (sky)
• High Sierra (1941), film written by John Huston and W. R. Burnett, and directed by Raoul Walsh. On his way to a planned heist in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Roy Earle (Humphrey Bogart) meets Velma (Joan Leslie). Under the night sky one romantic evening, they gaze at the heavens: Look at the stars. I never knew there were so many stars in the sky… Roy looks up, then points to the zenith. See that bright blue star up there? That's Vega. See how it sparkles? It's in kind of a lopsided square with points running up... see it? That's the constellation Lyra. I see it. How do you know? A man I used to know, a pal of mine, learned me all about the sky. (Awkwardly.) There wasn't much else to do where we was. Is that star always up there like that? (sky)
• A padlás (1988), popular Hungarian language musical comedy written by Gábor Presser, Dusán Sztevanovity, and Péter Horváth, and directed by László Marton. Four ghosts roam the Earth from attic to attic (staying close to the heavens), waiting for the ferryman Révész, who will conduct them to Vega, the star of "eternal beauty." Vega is where all dreams and memories live, and if they can get there, they will become beautiful forever. (meta)

There follow references to Vega as a location in space or the center of a planetary system, categorized by genre: