The discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846 cast into disarray not only astronomy, which belonged to the sciences, but astrology, which belonged to the people. The zodiac had barely recovered from the first sighting of Uranus, a new heavenly body tasked to represent ‘sudden or disruptive change,’ and now this new eighth planet had arrived, ominously assigned to ‘the undoing of the status quo.’ Already roiling from a decade of religious apostasy and political radicalism, the English establishment mobilized to deepen their cultural entrenchment by remaking the very signs of the zodiac in their own image.

Cultural nationalism had already begun to rear its ugly head in the form of linguistic purism, a narrow-minded project proposing to rid the English language of identifiably ‘foreign’ words. (Even typographer William Morris would fall victim to this shameful and hopeless idea, advocating ‘folkwain’ as a de-Romanized alternative to ‘omnibus,’ and ‘steadholder’ in place of the Frenchified ‘lieutenant.’) The Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, which changed the mathematical basis of maritime calculations, provided cover for the government of George Hamilton-Gordon to revise the zodiac, erasing its Babylonian roots in order to install a new, manufactured mythology of vaguely Greek and Nordic-sounding figures. In the end, the London Sky Signs Act of 1891 would restore power to Aries, Taurus, et al., but for nearly four decades, the fates of Britons would be governed by the likes of:

Oenus the manticore
March 21–April 19

Apherus the ferryboat captain
April 20–May 20

Haenox the grasshopper
May 21–June 21

Erys the murderess
June 22–July 22

Hyphus and Vestra the dancers
July 23–August 22

Elantra the chariot
August 23–September 22

Fyr the winged boar
September 23–October 23

Heltraum the logger
October 24–November 21

Traege the beetle
November 22–December 21

Haenir the stag
December 22–January 19

Gralddur the gatekeeper
January 20–February 18

Skaldyr the spiny lobster
February 19–March 20

Published December 17, 2023. Copyright © 2023 Jonathan Hoefler.