Chapter 22

Superstitions of this kind have long been banished to the narrower limits of agriculture and cattle breeding; we should arrive at a clearer knowledge of them, had their bearing on public life been described for us in early times. Observation of the lunar changes must in many ways have influenced sacrifices, the casting of losts and the conduct of war. Some things now appear bewildering, because we cannot review all the circumstances, and some no doubt were different in different nations. German superstition (I, 856) thinks it a calamity for the master of the house to die during the moon's decline, for then the whole family will fall away; the Esthonian view (41) is, that a death at new-moon is unlucky, perhaps because more will follow ? Fruits that grow above ground are to be sown at the waxing, those underground at the waning (Jul. Schmidt p. 122); not so Westendorp p. 129: 'dat boven den grond wast, by afnemende maan, dat onder den grond wast, by toenemende maan to zaaien.' Gutslaf (Wöhhanda p. 49, conf. errata) remarks, that winter-crops are not to be sown while the moon stands at the idle quarter (third, kus se kuh mäal). In the sermon of Eligius (Sup. A), the sentence 'nec luna nova quisquam timeat aliquid operis arripere' is unintelligible so long as we do not know what sort of operation is meant.

The spots or shady depressions on the full-moon's disc have given rise to grotesque but similar myths in several nations. To the common people of India they look like a hare, i.e. Chandras the god of the moon carries a hare (sasa) hence the moon is called sasin or sasânka, hare mark or spot. (38) The Mongolian doctrine also sees in these shadows the figure of a hare. (39) Bogdo Jagjamuni or Shigemuni [the Buddha Sakyâ-muni], supreme ruler of the sky, once changed himself into a hare, simply to serve as food to a starving traveller; in honour of which meritorious deed Khormusta, whom the Mongols revere as chief of the tenggri [genii] placed the figure of a hare in the moon. The people of Ceylon relate as follows: While Buddha the great god sojourned upon earth as a hermit, he one day lost his way in a wood. He had wandered long, when a hare accosted him: 'Cannot I help thee ? strike into the path on thy right, I will guide thee out of the wilderness.' Buddha replied: 'Thank thee, but I am poor and hungry, and unable to repay the kindness.' 'If thou art hungary,' said the hare, 'light a fire, and kill, roast and eat me.' Buddha made a fire, and the hare immediately jumped in. Then did Buddha manifest his divine power, he snatched the beast out of the flames, and set him in the moon, where he may be seen to this day. (40) To the Greenlander's fancy these spots are the marks of Malina's fingers, with which she touched the fine reindeer pelisse of Anninga (Majer's Myth. taschenb. 1811. p. 15).

An ON. fable tells us, that Mâni (the moon) took two children Bil and Hiuki, away from the earth, just as they were drawing water from the well Byrgir, and carrying the pail Sægr on the pole Simul between their shoulders. These children walk behind Maâni, as one may see from the earth (svâ sem siâ mâ af iörðu), Sn. 12. That not the moon's phases but her spots are here meant, is plain enough from the figure itself. No change of the moon could suggest the image of two children with a pail slung on their shoulders. Moreover, to this day the Swedish people see in the spots of the moon two persons carrying a big bucket on a pole. (41) Bil was probably the girl, and Hiuki a boy, the former apparently the same as the âsynja named together with Sôl in Sn. 39; there it is spelt Bîl, but without sufficient reason; the neuter 'bil' signifies momentum, interstitium, a meaning that would suit any appearance of the moon (conf. p. 374 on OHG. pil). What is most important for us, out of this heathen fancy of a kidnapping man of the moon, which, apart from Scandinavia, was doubtless in vogue all over Teutondom, if not farther, there has evolved itself since a christian adaptation. They say the man in the moon is a wood-stealer, who during church time on the holy sabbath committed a trespass in the wood, and was then transported to the moon as a punishment; there he may be seen with the axe on his back and the bundle of brushwood (dornwelle) in his hand. Plainly enough the water-pole of the heathen story has been transformed into the axe's shaft, and the carried pail into the thornbush; the general idea of theft was retained, but special stress laid on the keeping of the christian holiday; the man suffers punishment not so much for cutting firewood, as because he did it on a Sunday. (42) The interpolation is founded on Numb. 15, 32-6, where we are told of a man that gathered sticks on the sabbath, and was stoned to death by the congregation of Israel, but no mention is made of the moon and her spots. As to when this story first appeared in Germany I have no means of telling, it is almost universally prevalent now; (43) in case the full-moon's name of wadel, wedel in the sense of a bunch of twigs (44) has itself arisen out of the story (p. 712), it must be of pretty high antiquity. In Tobler's Appenzell sprachsch. 20b we are told: An arma ma (a poor man) het alawil am sonnti holz ufg'lesa (picked up wood). Do hed em der liebe Gott d'wahl g'loh (let him choose), öb er lieber wött i' der sonn verbrenna, oder im mo' verfrüra (burn in sun, or freeze in moon. Var.: in'n kalta mo' ihi, oder i' d' höll abi). Do will' er lieber in'n mo' ihi. Dromm sied ma' no' ietz an' ma' im mo' inna, wenn's wedel ist. Er hed a' püscheli uff 'em rogga (bush on his back). Kuhn's Märk. sagen nos. 27. 104. 130 give us three different accounts: in one a broom-maker has bound twigs (or a woman has spun) on a Sunday, in another a man has spread manure, in the third he has stolen cabbage-stumps; and the figure with the bunch of twigs (or the spindle), with the dungfork, with the cabbage-stalk, is supposed to form the spots in the moon. The earliest authority I know of is Fischart's Garg. 130b: 'sah im mon ein männlin, das holz gestohlen hett;' Praetorius says more definitely, Weltbeschr. 1, 447: the superstitious folk declared the dark spots on the moon to be the man that gathered sticks on the sabbath and was stoned therefor. The Dutch account makes the man steal vegetables, so he appears in the moon with the 'bundel moes' on his shoulders (Westendorp, p. 129). The English tradition seems pretty old. Chaucer in his Testament of Creseide 260-4 describes the moon as lady Cynthia:

Her gite (gown) was gray and ful of spottis blake,

and on her brest a chorl paintid ful even

bering a bush of thornis on his bake,

which for his theft might clime no ner the heven.

In Ritson's Anc. songs (Lond. 1790), p. 35 is a 'song upon the man in the moon,' beginning thus:

Mon in the mone stond and strit (standeth and strideth),

on his bot forke is burthen he bereth;

hit is much wonder that he na doun slyt (slideth),

for doutelesse he valle, he shoddreth and shereth,

when the forst freseth much chele he byd (chill he bideth);

the thornes beth kene, is hattren to-tereth.

Shivering with cold, he lugs on his fork a load of thorns, which tear his coat, he had cut them down and been impounded by the forester; the difficult and often unintelligible song represents him as a lazy old man, who walks a bit and stands a bit, and is drunk as well; not a word about desecration of the sabbath. Shakspeare alludes more than once to the man in the moon; Tempest ii. 2: 'I was the man i' th' moon, when time was'..........'I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee: my mistress showed me thee and thy dog and thy bush.' Mids. N. Dr. iii. 1: 'One must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, and say he comes to present the person of Moonshine.' In Gryphius too the player who acts the moon ties a bush round his body (conf. Ir. elfenm. no. 20).

Two more, and those conflicting, interpretations of the moon's spots are likewise drawn from the Bible. Either it is Isaac bearing a burthen of wood for the sacrifice of himself on Mount Moriah (Praetor. Weltbeschr. 1, 447); or it is Cain carrying a bundle of thorns on his shoulders, and offering to the Lord the cheapest gift from his field. (45) This we find as far back as Dante, Parad. 2, 50.

che sono i segni bui

di questo corpo, che laggiuso in terra

fan di Caïn favoleggiare altrui?
And Inferno 20, 126: Caino e le spine. On this passage Landino remarks: 'cioè la luna, nella quale i volgare vedendo una certa ombra, credono che sia Caino, c' habbia in spalla una forcata di pruni.' And another commentator: 'accommodandosi alla favola del volgo, che sieno quella macchie Caino, che inalzi una forcata di spine.'

Nearly all these explanations agree in one thing: they suppose the spots to be a human figure carrying something on its shoulder, whether a hare, a pole and bucket, an axe and thorns, or the load of thorns alone. (46) A wood-stealer or fratricide accounts for the spots of the moon, as a chaff-stealer (p. 357) does for the streaks in the milky way.

There must have been yet more traditions. A Netherl. poet of the 14 ^th century speaks of the dark stripes that stand

recht int midden van der mane,

dat men in duitsche heet ludergheer;
in another passage it is lendegher (47) (for leudegher ?); and Willems in Messager de Gand, 1, 195, following a MS. of 1351, reads, 'dat men in dietsch heet lodegeer;' but none of these forms is intelligible to me. Perhaps the proper name Ludgêr, Leodegarius, OHG. Liukêr, has to do with it, and some forgotten legend of the Mid. Ages. A touching religious interpretation is handed down by Berthold 145, surely not invented by himself, that the moon is Mary Magdalene, and the spots her tears of repentance (see Suppl.).

The Sun has had a slighter influence than the moon on superstitious notions and observances. Magical herbs must be gathered, if not by moonlight, at least before sunrise (p. 621), and healing waters be drawn before sunrise (p. 586). The mounting sun dispels all magic, and bids the spirits back to their subterranean abode.




ENDNOTES:

38. Schlegel's Ind. bibl. 1, 217. Acc. to Bopp's Gloss. 346ª, a Sanskrit name for the moon means lepore praeditus, leporem gerens. [Back]

39. Bergmann's Streifer. 3, 40. 204. Majer's Myth. wtb. 1, 540. [Back]

40. Douce's Illustr. of Shaksp. 1, 16 from the lips of a French traveller, whose telescope the Cingalese had often borrowed, to have a good look at the hare in the moon. [Back]

41. Dalin 1, 158: men ännu fins den meningen bland vår almoge. Ling's Eddornas sinnebildslära 1, 78: ännu säger allmänheten i Södraswerge, att månens fläckar äro tvenne varelser, som bära en bryggså (bridge-bucket, slung pail). [Back]

42. A Westphalian story says, the man dressed the church with thorns on Sunday, and was therefore put, bundle and all, into the moon. [Back]

43. Hebel has made a pretty song about it, pp. 86-9: 'me het em gsait der Dieterle,' on which Schm. 2, 583 asks: is this Dietrich of Bern, translated in classic fashion to the sky? We must first make sure that the poet found the name already in the tradition. [Back]

44. In the Henneberg distr. wadel means brushwood, twigs tied up in a bundle, esp. fir-twigs, wadeln to tie up brushwood (Reinwald 2, 137); this may however come from the practice of cutting wood at full moon. [Back]

45. The story of the first fratricide seems to have made a peculiarly deep impression on the new converts from heathenism; they fancy him a wicked giant, conf. Beow. 213 seq., and supra p. 525. [Back]

46. Water, an essential part of the Norse myth, is wanting in the story of the man with the thornbush, but it re-appears in the Carniolan story (for kramerisch read krainerisch) cited in Brentano's Libussa p. 421: the man in the moon is called Kotar, he makes her grow by pouring water. [Back]

47. Van Wyn's Avondstonden 1, 306. Bilderdijk's Verklarende gestachtlijst der naamworden 2, 198 has ludegeer, ludegaar, and explains it, no doubt wrongly, as luikenaar (leodiensis). However, he tells the old story: ' 't mannetjen in de maan, dat gezegd werd een doornbosch op ziju rug te heben, en om dat hy 't gestolen had, niet hooger ten hemel te mogen opklimmen, maar daar ingebannen te zijn.' Exactly as in Chaucer. [Back]