This is the story of the Centaurs of Greek mythology. Centaurs were half horse and half man, and most were very warlike, and also drank a lot of wine.

Where did the idea of Centaurs come from? The early Greeks did not have horses, but their northern neighbors in Thessaly did. The Thessalians had cattle and rode their horses to keep control of them. They were sort of the first cowboys... They were also a very strong and wild tribe, and worshipped the horse as their totem. So, it is thought that the Thessalians first pictured themselves as half horse and half man, and created the idea. And then the Greeks took the idea as they learned to use horses, and possibly when they first saw the Thessalians riding, they thought of them as half horse and half man, just as the native peoples of Mexico and Central and South America did when they first saw the Spanish on horseback. Since the Greeks considered themselves to be civilized, and the Thessalians to be barbaric, in Greek stories the Centaurs were often wild and drunken and fighting battles.

But, one special Centaur was Chiron, the most honest of all Centaurs. He was a son of Kronos, the Titan god. He lived in the mountain range of Pelion in Thessaly and was brought up by Apollon, the god of wisdom, poetry and music, and his sister Artemis, the mistress of the animals. They taught Chiron the arts of hunting, healing, music, athletics and divination. Later Chiron himself became the teacher of many great heroes who learned these arts from him, heroes like Achilleus, Kastor, Theseus, Hercules, Odysseus, and many others.

Being a son of a god, Chiron was immortal, but he was able to feel pain. One day, Hercules was in a battle against some Centaurs in the cave of Pholos. Chiron came to try and end the battle, but he was too late. The battle was well started, and many Centaurs lay dead. Hercules was using poisoned arrows, and when Chiron entered the cave, he was struck by one. Hercules didn't mean to kill his old friend and teacher, but there was nothing he could do. Suffering from the wound and the poison, Chiron asked the greatest god, Zeus to free him from immortality so as to end his pain. So Zeus transfered Chiron's immortality to Prometheus, the founder of mankind, and the wise Chiron died.

But Chiron lives on. He was the first who grouped the stars into constellations and taught men how to read them. One of his students was Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. To guide them on their voyage on the Argo, Chiron made a picture of himself and placed it in the sky. This is Alpha Centauri, closest star to the Sun, about four light-years away.