MOON MYTHS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1217, 28 June 1895, Page 12

MOON MYTHS.

* The moon has been worshipped among nearly all the nations of the wo Id from time immemorial; indeed, her cult has been asserted to be much older established j than sun worship. Samoyedes and the I people of Borneo adore her yet, and the Caribs come from their homes at new moon, and raise a great cry in her honour. J Swart Nubians rejoiced in the new moon's rising, just as did the cultured Greeks, who pictured her as a wild huntress, more girl than woman, with a cold breast unsunned by love for any man, mortal or demigod, and sweet cold lips that have never kissed any mouth but Endymion's, asleep on the mountains. Moslems clap their hands at the sight of the new moon ; the Finnish girl, Christian though she be,' drops a curtsey and a word of greeting to Kun, as his salver mask shines whitely «ver her;, the Peruvian peasant hurries home oat of the cold moonshine, afraid of t'ho Stern eyes of Mama Quilla ;arut•**. th& Egyptian fellah louuges across the Sands where the Sphinx's shadow lie 3 black at his feet, with a prayer on his ■ lips or in his heart to Thoth—Thoth, the Master of Wisdom, the Lord of. the Ibis, in whose absence the fair land of Khem has been brought down very low. Swabian girls still refuse to spin by moonlight, "lest they should anger Hsr," they say vaguely ; and in Germany children firmly believe in Horsel .or Holda, whose boat i 3 the moon, whose flower is the flax, and whose delight it ia to reward industrious little maidens. Dante makes the man in the moon Cain ; in Egypt he is Horus, held to the breast of Isis, his mother and the moon; in France he is Judas ; and in some parts of England the fancy obtains that he is a man who broke the Sabbath by gathering sticks from a neighbour's forest. In Rantum the man in the moon is a giant, who, at flowing tide, stoops to pour water on the earth, and at ebb ; tide stands upright, in order that the waters may subside. Devonshire folk

say that the figure to be seen in the moon is that of a dog. Other people say that it is Endymion, or Isaac bearing on his back a burden of wood for his own sacrifice on Mount Moriah. Danes

fancied that the moon is a cheese made from the milk that has rim out of the Milky Way. \ Pearls, and all other white stones, except diamonds, are in sympathy with the moon, according to the Rosicrucians, and should be worn on

Mondays. A curious Eastern fancy is that the figure in the moon is that of the pattern wife, Ina, who weaves the clouds into whi e cloth; and who, after a lapse of many years, sent her mortal husband back to earth by the rainbow bridge in order that death might not defile her heavenly home. The cat and the panther are both conuected with the

moon in some vague and occult fashion ; indeed, in Australia the moon is represented as a native cat, and alao in Egypt. In Chiua the Celestials say that there is a

frog iu the moon, a metamorphosed beauty called Chango.— All the Year Round.