Australian Aboriginal Myth Describes Variable Brightness Stars

Did you know that a few stars that are visible in the night sky vary in brightness over time, in time frames and magnitude of brightness variability that differ from star to star?

Modern astronomers do and ancient Egyptian astronomers did, but in Western European astronomy this wasn't discovered until a few years before the dawn of the 18th century CE, and many ordinary people today don't know this fact. But, Australian aborigines were well aware of it and embedded it in their mythology.

[N]ew research, recently published in The Australian Journal of Anthropology, reveals that Aboriginal oral traditions describe the variable nature of three red-giant stars: Betelgeuse, Aldebaran and Antares.

From here.

The myths not only embed the variable stars in the myths about the constellations that are home to them, but also recount the relative frequency with which their magnitude varies.