MOON LEGENDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2527, 20 August 1902, Page 60

MOON LEGENDS.

By Jessie Mackat.

111.

The hairy Ainu of Japan, the aboriginal inhabitant of that country, had some ideas on the moon also, though he did not offer any aicount of its creation, as his Mongolian di < =poss i essor did. Like many ancient peoples, he believed the sun and moon to bs husband and wife, though in other myths he tells of a victorious sun goddess, much the same as the shining daughter of Tzanagi, alieady mentioned. The moon is al=o Mended with omens of evil in Ainu superstition. If a man sees an owl flying between him and the face of the moon, the coi. sequences are expected to be so dreadfui that the unfortunate beholder flies from the distiict, and changes his name, so thiii when the avenger of the gods appears ho may be deceived by finding no person ausweiing to that name. Moreover, the hairy Amu has followed much loftier mytholo gist-> in pointing a moral from, the shad'iwed surface of the orb ; and solemnly tells hi.s cliildren of a rebellious boy who iefu»ed to draw water when bidden to do so by his father and mother. Instead of obeying, the young defaulter complained- of bis task to various creatures, especially a salmon. Immediately he was snatched up and put in the moon as a warning to all lazy children.

A Teutonic legend which has no moral to weight its pleasant fantasy has been beautiful.}- and simply told by the Danish poet Oelenschia^er in his "Children of the Moon.'' I give Robert Buchanan's translation of ir. as it appears in that charming collection ot Danish ballads he has given us : —

He.arks.i, child, unto 9 slorv 1

1- '( c t!i3 moon 19 in tiie «ky. Arid nrrcii his shield of silver

See, t\\ o tiny cloudlets fly. Watch them closely, mark thorn aharply,

As scross the light they pay, — Seem they not to have the figures

Of a little- lad and lasi ' Sac, my eh.id, across their shoulders

Lie 3 a little pole, and, lo ! Yonder speck is just the bucket,

Swinging aoftly 10 and fro. It is said these little children,

Man3 r aiul many a summer mglit, To a little veil far northward

Wandered in ths htill moonlight To the wajai'ic weil tliey trolled.

Filled tlieir little buckets there. And u-e iloon-ma.ll, looking downwaicl,

Saw how beautiful they were. Quoth the nraii, "How vexed and sulky

Looks the ht'le rosy boy l B« l the little handsome maiden

Tr.ps behuid him, full of joy." To the^ well behind the liedge-rr.w

Tx-ot the iittif lad and m&ici'ju ; Fiora the Vvell behind the aetige-iow

Now the little pail is lmleii. " How they pease me, how they tempt me!

Shall I snatch them up to-night' Snatch them, set them here for ever, In the middle of my light? Children, aye, and ciiilJieri'-. cli 'Jrcn, Should beaold my babes 011 h;gh , And my babes shou'd a u3ile for ercr,

Calling others to the sky. ' Thus the philosophic Mcor-iran Muttered many years a 'o , Set the babes with no'ie a^d bui'.'et, To delight th" lofk below. Kc\er is the bucket empty, Ncer are the childteii old Ever when the moon la shilling "We the children may behold. Ever ycung and e-er little' E'-er sweefc and ever fan ' "When thou art a man. my darhng, Still the children will be there. Ever yonng and ever htt'e, They will smile when then art old; "When, thy locks are thin and Bilver, Theirs will still be shining gold. They will haunt thee from thc-ir heaven, Softly beckoning down the gloom , S.aihng in et?rr.al sweetness

On thy cradle, on thy tomb l

Ti.is benevolent and beauty-loving Danish Moon-man is, of cours-e, no 1 elation to that reprehensible peison, the English man in the moon, who in orthodox nursery legend was caught up and imprisoned there forever because he gathered sticks on Sunday. We aie apt to fancy that our current ideas of signalling to Marx aie the unique results of modern science. But Pythagoras, the (ireek sage and mystic, was supposed to possess a magic mirror by w liich he could cast his writing upon the moon. Also the holy and inspired Hyperboieana of ancient story had t'iieir island very near the moon, so that, ai Moore sa_\ s : The moor, too, brings her world so nigh Thai when the mght-&eer looks

To ihut shiitiuwlebo 01b, in a vernal sky

He caa number it& nvers and brooks. An obscure theosophical legend (one of Madame Blavats.ky"s vKion-i. 1 think) say^that in the beginning of things the moon was a In ing creature, but either gave willingly or was forced to give its life to the young earth. Thereafter the pale orb followed after the earth unceasingly as a baleful ghost, grudging the life that was transfeired ; and to her malevolence is due all the sorrows and disorders of this planet. Few now remember the great Italian epic of the Middle Ages, the "Orlando Furioso "' of Anosto Its main theme was the Cru*ade.«, which it descubes in such a tangle of anachronisms as recalls Mauiice De Bracy's up-to-date veision of the wifehuntmg of the tribe of Benjamin in "Ivanhoe."' One of the many beautiful fancies it contained, however, was the visit of the hero* to the moon in company with a friendly magician. There he found all things that had been wasted on the earth treasured up in fitting receptacles. Broken votvs, unanswered prayers, fruitless tears, all were there, in a dim but changeless re ility of their own. He saw bubes hung up on gold and silver hooks to the scorn of the heavens. Prince's favours were shut up in bellows, waiting the first breath of tue to blow them away. He saw wasted talent" shut up in vases whose costliness mo.L.d th'-ir tontents.

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