Berenice's Hair

Once upon a time there was a queen called Berenice . . . Lovers of the stars know the story of how her hair was hung up in the temple of the Goddess of Love. It vanished! - and became the constellation we still know as Coma Berenices, "Berenice's Hair." But what really happened to her hair? Our somewhat more adult version of the story is based on what is known about the historical Berenice. For instance, she killed the first man who came to marry her. (Why? Because her mother seduced him.) She was born not in Egypt but in an African mountain town called Cyrene. And just after marrying the king of Egypt she was left to govern that complex realm by herself - a task, to say the least, not without dangers. The story happens to take Berenice to three of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, but none is so awesome as the natural phenomenon that rescues her at the last moment.