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Ancient lore of the sacred bull of heaven
A review of ‘I Am Taurus’ by Stephen Palmer, a British author of science fiction, steampunk and fantasy novels and short stories (Iff Books, February, 2024)
First, I must declare an interest. I am a Taurean by astrological birth sign. So perhaps it’s not surprising that I seized upon this new book.
Taurus was the first sign of the zodiac formalised by the Akkadians and Sumerians, and they knew it as the Great Bull of Heaven, with the brightest star in the constellation, the red giant Aldebaran, being its fiery eye.
For such ancient skywatchers, from about 4100–1700 BCE, leading into the Bronze Age from the Neolithic, the importance of Taurus was that it was the constellation in which the sun rose at the spring equinox.
Now, uniquely, in I Am Taurus, we hear the voice of the loric bull down the centuries as he addresses humankind: ‘… the star-strewn night is fundamental to their lives — stars including those comprising me’.
Stephen Palmer, who lives in Shropshire, England, says he wrote the book in order to ‘view human beings from the perspective of the aurochs bull of the European plains, related to the sacred bull of Mediterranean lands’.
