MAN IN THE MOON

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 15 July 1925, Page 10

MAN IN THE MOON

MOST ANCIENT OF SUPERSTI

TIONS

We all feel very wise nowadays about the moon, and smile indulgently as we Telate tales of its lonely old male inhabitant to the young. Our wisdom, based as it is upon all these maps and photographs and scientific theories, is, however, of very recent origin. The moon for generations was the greatest mystery of mankind —greater even than the sun. When Galileo, in 1609, first- turned his telescope upon the moon he created throughout Europe a much greater sensation than did Columbus when he discovered America.

Till then the scientific men had believed in Aristotle’s theory, that the moon is a perfectly smooth and round body, its markings being the continents of the world, reflected, as in a mirror. Everyone else explained away the mysterious marks with myths. There is'nothing more remarkable in history than the strange resemblances which exist between the explanations given by different races.

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Almost all of them interpreted the marks as being a man carrying a bundle of wood. Furthermore, they all seemed to regard him as one who. on account of a crime, was condemned to eternal isolation on the moon. He was, indeed, a horrible example to young and old alike.

In European countries the story generally had a so-called Biblical significance. In England it was Moses who found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and expelled him to the moon. The reference seems to be a passage in the 15th chapter of Numbers, but the resemblance is only slight. In France the man in the moon is none other than Judas Iscariot-, and the wood a load which he must always cary as a punishment.

The earliest English recoi'd appears in the writings of a St. Albans monk. It is a slight variation of the usual theme : A rustic in, the moon, Whose burden weighs him down, This changeles truth reveals. He profits not who steals. The German version dealt with a peasant who was reprimanded by an angel for gathering faggots on a Sunday. He replied: “Sunday on earth, or Monday in heaven, it is ah the same to me.” For this he was sent to an eternal moonday in heaven. * * *

A unique version is the Scandinavian. It attracted the attention of the late Hv, Baring-Gould, who traced it to its origin. In Norway, not only was there a man in the moon, but some other of the marks were deciphered as a woman. Their names were respectively Hiuki (pronounced Juki) and Bii. The myth' is that first Hjuki disappeared, or fell, and then Bil. When the moon wag in this phase there was supposed to be' much rain. In our nursery rhyme Hjuki becomes Jack, Bil becomes Jill and the rain is nothing more than the upsetting of a pail of water. In certain races the man in the moon, far from being a crimnal, is a being who, on account of great wisdom, was transfei-ed to the moon, from which he

could see all. To the Chinese he is | Yue-tao, who arranges all marriages. ■ The medicine men of the old Red Indian tribes received their power by departing into the middle of a lake and bidding consultation with the man in the moon.