THE MAN IN THE MOON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19239, 1 August 1924, Page 10

THE MAN IN THE MOON.

MOST ANCIENT OF SUPERSTITIONS. We all feel very wise nowadays about the moon, and smile indulgently as we relate 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 as great a sensation as Columbus did when he discovered America. Till then, declares a writer in John o' London's Weekly, the scientific men had believed in Aristotle's theory that the moon is a perfectly smooth, and round body, its marking 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. 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 exoelled him to the moon. The reference seems to be to a passage in the fifteenth 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 carry as a punishment. The earliest. English record 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 changeless truth reveals, He Drofits 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 all the same to me." For this he was sent to an eternal moon day; in heaven. A unique version is the Scandinavian. It attracted the attention of the Rev. 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 Hjuki (pronounced Juki) and Bil. The myth is that first Hjuki diear>neared, or fell, and then Bil. When the moon wa« in this phase tbero was supposed to bo much rain. In our nursery rhyme Hjuki becomes Jack, Bil becomes Jil, and the rain is nothing more than the upsetting of a pail of water. In certain races the man in the moon, tar from being a criminal, ie a being who, on account of great wisdom, was transferred to the moon, from which he could see all. To the Chinese he is Yuetao, who arranges all marriages. The medicine men of the old Bed Indian tribes received their power by departing into the middle of the lake and holding consultation with the man in the moon.