Anarríma

In ancient days, before the coming of the Children of Ilúvatar, Mandos prophesied that the first Elves would awaken soon under the dark and sunless skies of Middle-earth. Varda the Queen of the Stars chose to create greater and brighter patterns of stars to look down on the first Elves and, taking the silver dews of Telperion, she created new patterns of light in the sky. One of these new patterns was named Anarríma.

Varda's new constellations are named in Elvish, and not all of them can be directly identified, including Anarríma. Among those that are known (such as Menelmacar for Orion or Wilwarin for - probably - Cassiopeia) the names seem to describe particularly prominent constellations in the sky, so we might expect that Anarríma would also be one of the more familiar patterns of stars.

The name Anarríma seems to translate as 'Sun-edge' or 'Sun-border',¹ suggesting that the constellation lay near the Ecliptic, the Sun's path through the sky. A natural candidate for a modern equivalent would perhaps be either Taurus or Leo, each of which is a highly recognisable pattern of stars lying on the Ecliptic path. In the Silmarillion's list of the new star-groups, Anarríma is named directly before Menelmacar. Given that Taurus rises immediately before Orion, this would tend to hint that Taurus might be the intended identity, though ultimately that identity remains unknown.