EFFECT OF THE MOON ON VARIOUS PEOPLE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XXI, 13 November 1897, Page 665

EFFECT OF THE MOON ON VARIOUS PEOPLE.

‘lf you see the new moon over your right shoulder it’s good luck all the month’—over the left shoulder being bad luck, of course. ‘lf you meet the new moon face to face with money in your pocket you will have that kind of money in your pocket for a month’—and so on. this last being taken from an old black-letter treatise on ‘things worth knowing.’ Everywhere in the world the idea prevails among those who lack scientific training that anything falling to the lot of man whim tin- moon is waxing will likewise increase, similarly decreasing while the moon wanes. The Hindoo troubled with warts looks at the new moon, picks up a pinch of dust from beneath his left foot, rubs the wart with it—and whi'n the moon goes so does the wart. If you fall ill you can he cured by herbs gathered in the full of the moon. The Moslems in the kingdom of Olldh cure insomnia, palpitation of the heart, nervous prostration, and similar evils by stationing the sufferer with a basin of water in his hands in the light of the full moon in such a way that its refulgent image shines directly from the liquid into his eyes. Then, without moving his gaze, he is required to swallow the water at a draught. In Northern India the people lay out food in the full moon that comes in the months corresponding to our September and October, half of each.

and give it to their friends as a means of insuring longevity. That same night the girls pour water in the moonlight, saying they are getting rid of the cold weather. It was long ago noted that the ' orkshire maids ‘do worship the new moon on their bare knees, kneeling upon an earthfast stone,’ and Lady ilde says that the Irish damsels drop on their knees when they first catch sight of the new moon and say: ‘Oh, moon, leave us as well as you found us !’ In India the natives take seven threads from the end of their turbans and give tfiem to the new moon with a prayer. The spots on the moon are caused by many persons or things. Sometimes it is a man with a fagot on his back, sent thither for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. Chaucer calls him a thief and puts a thornbush on his shoulders. Dante says it is no less a criminal than Cain. Shakespeare provides a dog to keep him company. Hindoos keep, not a man. but a hare, in the moon, and the well-known connection in the minds of the man in the moon and insanity may account for the statement regarding the March hare, and possibly the thornbush may be the distinctive covering of the hatter. At any rate, this is as good guessing as a lot of the sun myth people have done, while BaringGould identifies the moon children, Bill and Hiuki of the Northern mythology, with Jack and Gill of the nursery rhyme. The Greenland Esquimau believes that the sun and moon were originally brother and sister. She, being teased by him past ordinary endurance. seized some lampblack and i übbed it on his face. Then she ran, her brother after. Finally she went so fast she rose up into the air and became the sun. while her sooty-faced brother turned into the moon. In Samoa, when a great famine oppressed the people, the moon rose one night, big. and round, like a bread-fruit. A patient mother, unable to quiet the pangs of her little one, looked up and

said : It hy don’t you come down and let my baby have a bit of you ?’ This made the moon so angry that she si in ply picked up both mother and child, and they have been there ever si nee. All sailors are certain that sleeping in tropical moon rays will either make them. cross-eyed or blind. On the American vessel El Captain a year or two ago a number of the erew, disregarding the advice of their fellows during a spell of hot weather, slept on the deck in the moonlight, and soon after went completely blind at night, though they could see as well in the daytime as ever. The skipper of the ship reported the occurrence, and with it made a statement to the effect that up to that time he had been a disbeliever in the so-called moon blink. Paul Eve Stevenson reports that he. too, was hurriedly awakened on his way to New York from the Bahamas with the assurance from the captain that all sorts of things would happen to him if he slept in moonlight. This is a disease unknown to the medical profession.