- The Canary Islands (/kəˈnɛəri/, Spanish: Canarias, Spanish: [kaˈnaɾjas]), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish region, autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Morocco. They are the southernmost of the autonomous communities of Spain. The islands have a population of 2.2 million people and are the most populous special territory of the European Union.
- Star Tales - Hercules (ianridpath.com)
The origin of this constellation is so ancient that its true identity was lost even to the Greeks, who knew the figure as Ἐνγόνασι (Engonasi) or Ἐνγόνασιν (Engonasin), literally meaning ‘the kneeling one’. The Greek poet Aratus described him as being worn out with toil, his hands upraised, with one knee bent and a foot on the head of Draco, the dragon. ‘No one knows his name, nor what he labours at’, said Aratus. But Eratosthenes, a century after Aratus, identified the figure as Heracles (the Greek name for Hercules) triumphing over the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. The Greek playwright Aeschylus, quoted by Hyginus, offered a different explanation. He said that Heracles was kneeling, wounded and exhausted, during his battle with the Ligurians.