Since ancient times, people have stared up at the moon and wondered what was up there. They gazed at the moon spots and saw figures. They created stories about how the figures got there.
All across the world and within every culture, there are stories about the moon figures. There is the man in the moon, the woman in the moon, the boy, the children, a toad, a hare, and numerous other animals living up there. Each has its own story, or even several stories, that has been told through the countless ages.
The Sabbath Breaker
One of the most popular tales on how a man got onto the moon has been told and retold in countless variations for hundreds of years. In one of the German versions of the story, an old man leaves his home on a Sunday morning to cut and gather sticks for his fire. As the old man was going about his work, he met another man who was dressed in his Sunday best (in another story the old man is stopped by the fairies).
The well dressed man was shocked to see someone working on the day of rest and said, “Do you know that this is Sunday on Earth, when all must rest from their labors?”
The old man replied, “Sunday on Earth or Monday in Heaven, it is all one to me.”
As it just so happened, the well dressed man was either God or one of his angels (in some stories it was Moses). As punishment for working on a Sunday, the well dressed man banished the old man to the moon to carry his bundle of sticks for an eternity and to serve as a warning to others who might think of working on the Sabbath day.
Man And Woman On The Moon
From out of Lower Saxony comes another tale of naughty Sabbath breakers. There was a time when God really did not tolerate people working on Sundays. If caught, and we are assuming that God could catch them all, the Sabbath breakers were forced to endure some sort of punishment. In some stories the Sabbath breakers were given a choice between burning on the sun or freezing on the moon. Of course, it is better to freeze than burn for an eternity.
In this story a man went out early one Sunday morning and gathered a large amount of thorny brambles. He then scattered these thorny sticks on the path to the church to prevent the local people from getting to Sunday Mass. For the man’s bad deed, he was sentenced to the moon to carry his bundle of thorny brambles until the end of time.
The man’s partner was a woman who, instead of taking the day off on Sunday, churned butter instead. As punishment for her hard work, she was also sentenced to the moon. She can be seen standing next to the bramble man, carrying her butter tub until the end of times.
Wouldn’t Fetch Water
The Ainu in historical Japan had their own story about the person in the moon and how he got there.
Long ago, there was a young man who did not like to obey his mother and father. In fact, he grumbled, complained, and stalled each time they asked him to complete some chore. One day he was told to go fetch some water. At first the young man stalled. He played around the fire, hoping that one of his parents would fetch the water instead. When that didn’t work, the young man grabbed the ladle and bucket. He hit the ladle on the post and said to the post, “At least you don’t have to fetch the water.” As the young man came to the river, he saw a little fish and said to it, “At least you do not have to fetch the water.”
Standing at the edge of the river with his ladle and bucket, a large autumn salmon came to the surface. The young man, surprised, greeted the salmon, “How do you do, Mr. Salmon?” With that, the salmon seized hold of the young man and whisked him away to the moon.
The young man remains inside the moon today as both punishment for not obeying his parents and as a warning to all other children that parents must always be willingly obeyed.
Jack And Jill
In Norse mythology we see the origin of the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme: Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
In this ancient moon story, two young children, Hjuki and Bil, are told by their father to go and fetch some water from out of the well. The children grab the pail and pole, place the pail onto the pole, and hold the pole together as they go up the hill to the well. The moon, Norse god Mani, sees the two children at work together and comes down, grabs the children, and takes them back up to the moon. Together they help Mani drive his moon chariot across the night skies. The children can still be seen carrying the pail of water together upon the moon’s surface.
What makes this old myth so much more interesting is that the names of the children can be translated as increase (jakka) and dissolve (bila). The children represent the waxing and waning of the moon.
Stealing Cabbages
Among the North Frisians there was told a different story about how the man got in the moon.
A long time ago, when wishes would still come true, there was a lovely garden full of crisp, ripe cabbages. The neighbor saw the beautiful cabbages and decided to take them for himself. So, on the night of Christmas Eve, or Winter Solstice, the man snuck over and picked all the cabbages. Unfortunately, the man was not as sneaky as he thought he was and the people of the village caught him in the act. As his punishment, the people wished the man up to the moon where he can be seen to this day, carrying his load of cabbages until the end of time.
According to a more recent superstition, you should never talk about cabbages while looking at the moon. Doing so hurts the feelings of the man in the moon because he was a cabbage thief when he was alive on Earth.
He Fell Onto The Moon
The Maori have their own legend as to how a man got onto the moon. According to the story, a man named Rona grabbed a bucket and left the safety of his home one night to fetch some water from a nearby well. As luck would have it, the man got to the well but tripped in the darkness and sprained his ankle. The moon saw what happened and approached the injured man. Understandably, the man was terrified by the sight of the moon growing larger and larger before his very eyes. In terror the man managed to hobble his way to a tree and grab onto it, but it was no use. Both the man and the tree suddenly fell or was pulled towards the moon where they remain today. The man can be seen on the moon, clutching the tree instead of a bundle of sticks or a bunch of bramble as in the other man in the moon legends.
Brother Sun And Sister Moon
Among the Algonquins in North America was a story about a brother and a sister. The brother, a masterful conjuror and powerful man, fell in love with his sister. He wooed her and treated her so sweetly that she accepted his advances. With his magic, he swept her up into the heavens along with some fire, and together they lived happily for awhile. One day things began to change. The brother became cruel and started to hurt his sister. In a fit of anger, he threw fire at her and burnt one side of her face.
Knowing that she was in danger, the sister ran away from her brother in the heavens and she became the moon. Her brother, his temper burning hot, became the sun and chased her across the skies.
As the moon wanes, we see the burnt side of the sister’s face. As the moon grows full, she is turning her head and showing us her beautiful side.
The Soul Of A Sibyl
The ancient Greeks had numerous goddesses and gods linked to the moon. Some people believed that the face in the moon was the goddess Selene or the figure in the moon was Hecate, crone goddess of the crossroads. Greek biographer, Plutarch, wrote in his treatise, Of the Face, that the face seen in the moon was the soul of a sibyl waiting to be born. A separate source states that Serapion of Alexander, a Greek physician, said that “the soul of the most ancient Delphic Sibyl migrated after her death into the Moon.” This might suggest that certain souls of the ancient sibyls were born and reborn in a continuous cycle, with an incubation period within the moon between death and rebirth.
In ancient Greece, a sibyl was a prophetess and the sacred keeper of the books or secrets. She was inexplicably tied to the moon, the ultimate keeper of secrets and forgotten knowledge. Pausanias, a Greek geographer, claimed that there was only one true sibyl and she was the goddess Artemis, goddess of knowledge, wisdom, and the moon.
Yue Lao
In Chinese mythology there is the Old Man of the Moon, a god named Yue Lao. Unlike other man in the moon legends, Yue Lao was not banished to the moon. Instead, he is the god that looks over love and marriage. Young couples who wanted to end their days in marital bliss would look up at the moon and wish for happiness in marriage. Sometimes Yue Lao would grant them their wish, but sometimes Yue Lao would get hurried and careless and mess things up for the love doomed couple.
People who were meant to marry each other were bound by Yue Lao. Depending on who is telling the story, Yue Lao would either bind the fated lovers feet together with an invisible thread or with a supernatural red string. If the two people did not marry each other, but married different people, they would never find true happiness in marriage.
Moon Hare
Out of Buddhist India comes the ancient story of how the hare came to be on the moon. As the story goes, the god Sakkria heard about a small group of animals who lived together and vowed not to kill any living things for their meals. Sakkria wanted to test their faith and transformed himself into the shape of a brahmin.
The brahmin approached the first animal, a monkey, and begged for alms. The monkey rushed off and returned with a bunch of mangoes for the brahmin. Next, the brahmin begged for alms from the coot, a type of bird. The coot flew off and returned with fish he found along the river, left by the fisherman. The brahmin went to the fox and again he begged for alms. The fox brought the brahmin a pot of milk. Finally, the brahmin went to the hare and begged for alms. The hare was dismayed because he only ate grass and that was not good enough for the brahmin. Instead, the hare offered up his own flesh for the brahmin to eat. The brahmin accepted the offer and kindled the fire. He asked the hare to jump into the fire for him. The hare readily agreed and got up onto a rock and lept towards the flames. Before reaching the fire, the brahmin put out the fire and changed back into his true godly shape. The god picked up the hare and held him in his arms.
As a reward for self sacrifice, the image of the hare was placed on the moon so that others would know the story of the hare.
