Moon Lore Part 3

III. THE WOMAN IN THE MOON.

"O woman! lovely woman! nature made thee To temper man; we had been brutes without you.

Angels are painted fair, to look like you: There's in you all that we believe of heaven Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love."

(Otway's _Venice Preserved_, 1682.)

It is not good that the man in the moon should be alone; therefore creative imagination has supplied him with a companion. The woman in the moon as a myth does not obtain to any extent in Europe; she is to be found chiefly in Polynesia, and among the native races of North America. The _Middle Kingdom_ furnishes the following allusion: "The universal legend of the man in the moon takes in China a form that is at least as interesting as the ruder legends of more barbarous people. The 'G.o.ddess of the Palace of the Moon,' Chang-o, appeals as much to our sympathies as, and rather more so than, the ancient beldame who, in European folk-lore, picks up perpetual sticks to satisfy the vengeful ideas of an ultra-Sabbatical sect. Mr. G. C. Stent has aptly seized the idea of the Chinese versifier whom he translates

"On a gold throne, whose radiating brightness Dazzles the eyes--enhaloing the scene, Sits a fair form, arrayed in snowy whiteness.

She is Chang-o, the beauteous Fairy Queen.

Rainbow-winged angels softly hover o'er her, Forming a canopy above the throne; A host of fairy beings stand before her, Each robed in light, and girt with meteor zone.'" [62]

A touching tradition is handed down by Berthold that the moon is Mary Magdalene, and the spots her tears of repentance. [63]

Fontenelle, the French poet and philosopher, saw a woman in the moon's changes. "Everything," he says, "is in perpetual motion; even including a certain young lady in the moon, who was seen with a telescope about forty years ago, everything has considerably aged.

She had a pretty good face, but her cheeks are now sunken, her nose is lengthened, her forehead and chin are now prominent to such an extent, that all her charms have vanished, and I fear for her days."

"What are you relating to me now?" interrupted the marchioness.

"This is no jest," replied Fontenelle. "Astronomers perceived in the moon a particular figure which had the aspect of a woman's head, which came forth from between the rocks, and then occurred some changes in this region. Some pieces of mountain fell, and disclosed three points which could only serve to compose a forehead, a nose, and an old woman's chin." [64] Doubtless the face and the disfigurements were fictions of the author's lively imagination, and his words savour less of science than of satire; but Fontenelle was neither the first nor the last of those to whom "the inconstant moon that monthly changes" has been an impersonation of the fickle and the feminine. The following ill.u.s.tration is from Plutarch: "Cleobulus said, As touching fooles, I will tell you a tale which I heard my mother once relate unto a brother of mine. The time was (quoth she) that the moone praied her mother to make her a peticoate fit and proportionate for her body. Why, how is it possible (quoth her mother) that I should knit or weave one to fit well about thee considering that I see thee one while full, another while croissant or in the wane and pointed with tips of horns, and sometime again halfe rounde?" [65] Old John Lilly, one of our sixteenth-century dramatists, likewise supports this ungallant theory. In the _Prologus_ to one of his very rare dramas he writes:

"Our poet slumb'ring in the muses laps, Hath seen a woman seated in the moone." [66]

This woman is Pandora, the mischief-maker among the Utopian shepherds. In Act v. she receives her commission to conform the moon to her own mutability:

"Now rule _Pandora_ in fayre _Cynthia's_ steede, And make the moone inconstant like thyselfe, Raigne thou at women's nuptials, and their birth, Let them be mutable in all their loves.

Fantasticall, childish, and folish, in their desires Demanding toyes; and stark madde When they cannot have their will."

In North America the woman in the moon is a cosmological myth.

Take, for example, the tale told by the Esquimaux, which word is the French form of the Algonquin Indian _Eskimantsic_, "raw-flesh eaters." "Their tradition of the formation of the sun and moon is, that not long after the world was formed, a great conjuror or angikak became so powerful that he could ascend into the heavens when he pleased, and on one occasion took with him a beautiful sister whom he loved very much, and also some fire, to which he added great quant.i.ties of fuel, and thus formed the sun. For a time the conjuror treated his sister with great kindness, and they lived happily together; but at last he became cruel, ill-used her in many ways, and, as a climax, burnt one side of her face with fire. After this last indignity she ran away from him and became the moon. Her brother in the sun has been in chase of her ever since; but although he sometimes gets near, will never overtake her. When new moon, the burnt side of her face is towards the earth; when full moon, the reverse is the case." [67] The likeness between this tradition and the Greenlanders' myth of Malina and Anninga is very close, the difference consisting chiefly in the change of s.e.x; here the moon is feminine, there the moon is masculine. [68]

In Brazil the story is further varied, in that it is the sister who falls in love, and receives a discoloured face for her offence. Professor Hartt says that Dr. Silva de Coutinho found on the Rio Branco and Sr.

Barbosa has reported from the Jamunda a myth "in which the moon is represented as a maiden who fell in love with her brother and visited him at night, but who was finally betrayed by his pa.s.sing his blackened hand over her face." [69]

The Ottawa tale of Indian cosmogony, called Iosco, narrates the adventures of two Indians who "found themselves in a beautiful country, lighted by the moon, which shed around a mild and pleasant light. They could see the moon approaching as if it were from behind a hill. They advanced, and the aged woman spoke to them; she had a white face and pleasing air, and looked rather old, though she spoke to them very kindly. They knew from her first appearance that she was the moon. She asked them several questions. She informed them that they were halfway to her brother's (the sun), and that from the earth to her abode was half the distance." [70]

Other American Indians have a tradition of an old woman who lived with her grand-daughter, the most beautiful girl that ever was seen in the country. Coming of age, she wondered that only herself and her grandmother were in the world. The grandam explained that an evil spirit had destroyed all others; but that she by her power had preserved herself and her grand-daughter. This did not satisfy the young girl, who thought that surely some survivors might be found.

She accordingly travelled in search, till on the tenth day she found a lodge inhabited by eleven brothers, who were hunters. The eleventh took her to wife, and died after a son was born. The widow then wedded each of the others, beginning with the youngest. When she took the eldest, she soon grew tired of him, and fled away by the western portal of the hunter's lodge. Tearing up one of the stakes which supported the door, she disappeared in the earth with her little dog. Soon all trace of the fugitive was lost. Then she emerged from the earth in the east, where she met an old man fis.h.i.+ng in the sea.

This person was he who made the earth. He bade her pa.s.s into the air toward the west. Meanwhile the deserted husband pursued his wife into the earth on the west, and out again on the east, where the tantalizing old fisherman cried out to him, "Go, go; you will run after your wife as long as the earth lasts without ever overtaking her, and the nations who will one day be upon the earth will call you _Gizhigooke_, he who makes the day." From this is derived _Gizis_, the sun. Some of the Indians count only eleven moons, which represent the eleven brothers, dying one after another. [71]

Pa.s.sing on to Polynesia, we reach Samoa, where "we are told that the moon came down one evening, and picked up a woman, called Sina, and her child. It was during a time of famine. She was working in the evening twilight, beating out some bark with which to make native cloth. The moon was just rising, and it reminded her of a great bread-fruit. Looking up to it, she said, 'Why cannot you come down and let my child have a bit of you?' The moon was indignant at the idea of being eaten, came down forthwith, and took her up, child, board, mallet, and all. The popular superst.i.tion is not yet forgotten in Samoa of the _woman_ in the moon. 'Yonder is Sina,' they say, 'and her child, and her mallet, and board.'" [72] The same belief is held in the adjacent Tonga group, or Friendly Islands, as they were named by Captain Cook, on account of the supposed friendliness of the natives. "As to the spots in the moon, they are compared to the figure of a woman sitting down and beating _gnatoo_" (bark used for clothing). [73]

In Mangaia, the southernmost island of the Hervey cl.u.s.ter, the woman in the moon is Ina, the pattern wife, who is always busy, and indefatigable in the preparation of resplendent cloth, _i.e. white clouds_. At Atiu it is said that Ina took to her celestial abode a mortal husband, whom, after many happy years, she sent back to the earth on a beautiful rainbow, lest her fair home should be defiled by death. [74] Professor Max Muller is reminded by this story of Selene and Endymion, of Eos and t.i.thonos.

IV. THE HARE IN THE MOON.

When the moon is waxing, from about the eighth day to the full, it requires no very vivid imagination to descry on the westward side of the lunar disk a large patch very strikingly resembling a rabbit or hare. The oriental noticing this figure, his poetical fancy developed the myth-making faculty, which in process of time elaborated the legend of the hare in the moon, which has left its marks in every quarter of the globe. In Asia it is indigenous, and is an article of religious belief. "To the common people in India the spots look like a hare, _i.e._ Chandras, the G.o.d of the moon, carries a hare (sasa), hence the moon is called Sasin or Sasanka, hare mark or spot." [75]

Max Muller also writes, "As a curious coincidence it may be mentioned that in Sanskrit the moon is called Sasanka,_i.e._ 'having the marks of a hare,' the black marks in the moon being taken for the likeness of the hare." [76] This allusion to the sacred language of the Hindus affords a convenient opportunity of introducing one of the most beautiful legends of the East. It is a Buddhist tract; but in the lesson which it embodies it will compare very favourably with many a tract more ostensibly Christian.

"In former days, a hare, a monkey, a coot, and a fox, became hermits, and lived in a wilderness together, after having sworn not to kill any living thing. The G.o.d Sakkria having seen this through his divine power, thought to try their faith, and accordingly took upon him the form of a brahmin, and appearing before the monkey begged of him alms, who immediately brought to him a bunch of mangoes, and presented it to him. The pretended brahmin, having left the monkey, went to the coot and made the same request, who presented him a row of fish which he had just found on the bank of a river, evidently forgotten by a fisherman. The brahmin then went to the fox, who immediately went in search of food, and soon returned with a pot of milk and a dried liguan, which he had found in a plain, where apparently they had been left by a herdsman. The brahmin at last went to the hare and begged alms of him. The hare said, 'Friend, I eat nothing but gra.s.s, which I think is of no use to you.' Then the pretended brahmin replied, 'Why, friend, if you are a true hermit, you can give me your own flesh in hope of future happiness.' The hare directly consented to it, and said to the supposed brahmin, 'I have granted your request, and you may do whatever you please with me.' The brahmin then replied, 'Since you are willing to grant my request, I will kindle a fire at the foot of the rock, from which you may jump into the fire, which will save me the trouble of killing you and dressing your flesh.' The hare readily agreed to it, and jumped from the top of the rock into the fire which the supposed brahmin had kindled; but before he reached the fire, it was extinguished; and the brahmin appearing in his natural shape of the G.o.d Sakkria, took the hare in his arms and immediately drew its figure in the moon, in order that every living thing of every part of the world might see it." [77] All will acknowledge that this is a very beautiful allegory. How many in England, as well as in Ceylon, are described by the monkey, the coot, and the fox--willing to bring their G.o.d any oblation which costs them nothing; but how few are like the hare--ready to present themselves as a living sacrifice, to be consumed as a burnt offering in the Divine service! Those, however, who lose their lives in such self-sacrifice, shall find them, and be caught up to "s.h.i.+ne as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever."

Another version of this legend is slightly variant. Grimm says: "The people of Ceylon relate as follows: While Buddha the great G.o.d 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 thy kindness.' 'If thou art hungry,' 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed the beast out of the flames, and set him in the moon, where he may be seen to this day." [78] Francis Douce, the antiquary, relates this myth, and adds, "this is from the information of a learned and intelligent French gentleman recently arrived from Ceylon, who adds that the Cingalese would often request of him to permit them to look for the hare through his telescope, and exclaim in raptures that they saw it. It is remarkable that the Chinese represent the moon by a rabbit pounding rice in a mortar. Their mythological moon Jut-ho is figured by a beautiful young woman with a double sphere behind her head, and a rabbit at her feet. The period of this animal's gestation is thirty days; may it not therefore typify the moon's revolution round the earth." [79]

[Ill.u.s.tration: moon08]

SaKYAMUNI AS A HARE IN THE MOON.

_Collin de Plancy's_ "_Dictionnaire Infernal_."

In this same apologue we have doubtless a duplicate, the original or a copy, of another Buddhist legend found among the Kalmucks of Tartary; in which Sakyamuni himself, in an early stage of existence, had inhabited the body of a hare. Giving himself as food to feed the hunger of a starving creature, he was immediately placed in the moon, where he is still to be seen. [80]

The Mongolian also sees a hare in the lunar shadows. We are told by a Chinese scholar that "tradition earlier than the period of the Han dynasty a.s.serted that a hare inhabited the surface of the moon, and later Taoist fable depicted this animal, called the gemmeous hare, as the servitor of the genii, who employ it in pounding the drugs which compose the elixir of life. The connection established in Chinese legend between the hare and the moon is probably traceable to an Indian original. In Sanskrit inscriptions the moon is called Sason, from a fancied resemblance of its spots to a leveret; and pandits, to whom maps of the moon's service have been shown, have fixed on _Loca Paludosa_, and _Mons Porphyrites_ or _Keplerus_ and _Aristarchus_, for the spots which they think exhibit the similitude of a hare." [81] On another page of the same work we read: "During the T'ang dynasty it was recounted that a ca.s.sia tree grows in the moon, this notion being derived apparently from an Indian source. The _sal_ tree (_sh.o.r.ea robusta_), one of the sacred trees of the Buddhists, was said during the Sung dynasty to be identical with the ca.s.sia tree in the moon. The lunar hare is said to squat at the foot of the ca.s.sia tree, pounding its drugs for the genii. The ca.s.sia tree in the moon is said to be especially visible at mid-autumn, and hence to take a degree at the examinations which are held at this period is described as plucking a leaf from the ca.s.sia." [82]

This hare myth, attended with the usual transformation, has travelled to the Hottentots of South Africa. The fable which follows is ent.i.tled "From an original ma.n.u.script in English, by Mr. John Priestly, in Sir G. Grey's library." "The moon, on one occasion, sent the hare to the earth to inform men that as she (the moon) died away and rose again, so mankind should die and rise again. Instead, however, of delivering this message as given, the hare, either out of forgetfulness or malice, told mankind that as the moon rose and died away, so man should die and rise no more. The hare, having returned to the moon, was questioned as to the message delivered, and the moon, having heard the true state of the case, became so enraged with him that she took up a hatchet to split his head; falling short, however, of that, the hatchet fell upon the upper lip of the hare, and cut it severely. Hence it is that we see the 'hare-lip.' The hare, being duly incensed at having received such treatment, raised his claws, and scratched the moon's face; and the dark parts which we now see on the surface of the moon are the scars which she received on that occasion." [83] In an account of the Hottentot myth of the "Origin of Death," the angered moon heats a stone and burns the hare's mouth, causing the hare-lip. [84] Dr. Marshall may tell us, with all the authority of an eminent physiologist, that hare-lip is occasioned by an arrest in the development of certain frontal and nasal processes, [85] and we may receive his explanation as a sweetly simple solution of the question; but who that suffers from this leporine-l.a.b.i.al deformity would not prefer a supernatural to a natural cause? Better far that the lip should be cleft by Shakespeare's "foul fiend Flibbertigibbet," than that an abnormal condition should be accounted for by science, or comprised within the reign of physical law.

Even Europe is somewhat hare-brained: for Caesar tells us that the Britons did not regard it lawful to eat the hare, though he does not say why; and in Swabia still, children are forbidden to make shadows on the wall to represent the sacred hare of the moon.

We may pursue this matter even in Mexico, whose deities and myths a recent Hibbert lecturer brought into clearer light, showing that the Mexicans "possessed beliefs, inst.i.tutions, and a developed mythology which would bear comparison with anything known to antiquity in the old world." [86] The Tezcucans, as they are usually called, are described by Prescott as "a nation of the same great family with the Aztecs, whom they rivalled in power, and surpa.s.sed in intellectual culture and the arts of social refinement." [87] Their account of the creation is that "the sun and moon came out equally bright, but this not seeming good to the G.o.ds, one of them took a rabbit by the heels and slung it into the face of the moon, dimming its l.u.s.tre with a blotch, whose mark may be seen to this day." [88]

We have now seen that the fancy of a hare in the moon is universal; but not so much importance is to be attached to this, as to some other aspects of moon mythology. The hare-like patch is visible in every land, and suggested the animal to all observers. That the rabbit's period of gestation is thirty days is a singular coincidence; but that is all--nay, it is not even that, for "the moon's revolution round the earth," which Douce supposed the Chinese myth to typify, is accomplished in a little more than _twenty-seven_ days. Neither is much weight due to the fanciful comparison of Gubernatis: "The moon is the watcher of the sky, that is to say, she sleeps with her eyes open; so also does the hare, whence the _somnus leporinus_ became a proverb." [89] The same author says on another page, and here we follow him: "The mythical hare is undoubtedly the moon.

In the first story of the third book of the _Pancatantram_, the hares dwell upon the sh.o.r.e of the lake Candrasaras, or lake of the moon, and their king has for his palace the lunar disk." [90] It is this story, which Mr. Baring-Gould relates in outline; and which we are compelled still further to condense. In a certain forest there once lived a herd of elephants. Long drought having dried up the lakes and swamps, an exploring party was sent out in search of a fresh supply of water. An extensive lake was discovered, called the moon lake. The elephants with their king eagerly marched to the spot, and found their thirsty hopes fully realized. All round the lake were in numerable hare warrens, which the tread of the mighty monsters crushed unmercifully, maiming and mangling the helpless inhabitants. When the elephants had withdrawn, the poor hares met together in terrible plight, to consult upon the course which they should take when their enemies returned. One wise hare undertook the task of driving the ponderous herd away. This he did by going alone to the elephant king, and representing himself as the hare which lived in the moon. He stated that he was deputed by his excellency the moon to say that if the elephants came any more to the lake, the beams of night would be withheld, and their bodies would be burned up with perpetual suns.h.i.+ne. The king of the elephants thinking that "the better part of valour is discretion,"

decided to offer an apology for his offence. He was conducted to the lake, where the moon was reflected in the water, apparently meditating his revenge. The elephant thrust his proboscis into the lake, which disturbed the reflection. Whereupon the elephant, judging the moon to be enraged, hurried with his apology, and then went off vowing never to return. The wise hare had proven that "wisdom is better than strength"; and the hares suffered no more molestation. "We may also remark, in this event, the truth of that saying of Euripides, 'that one wise counsel is better than the strength of many'" (_Polybius_, i. 35).

V. THE TOAD IN THE MOON.

We owe an immense debt of grat.i.tude and honour to the many enterprising and cultivated men who have gone into all parts of the earth and among all peoples to investigate human history and habit, mythology and religion, and thus enrich the stores of our national literature. With such a host of travellers gathering up the fragments, nothing of value is likely to be lost. We have to thank intelligent explorers for all we know of the mythical frog or toad in the moon: an addition to our information which is not unworthy of thoughtful notice.

The Selish race of North-west American Indians, who inhabit the country between the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, have a tradition, which Captain Wilson relates as follows: "The expression of 'a toad in the moon,' equivalent to our 'man in the moon,' is explained by a very pretty story relating how the little wolf, being desperately in love with the toad, went a-wooing one night and prayed that the moon might s.h.i.+ne brightly on his adventure; his prayer was granted, and by the clear light of a full moon he was pursuing the toad, and had nearly caught her, when, as a last chance of escape, she made a desperate spring on to the face of the moon, where she remains to this day." [91] Another writer says that "the Cowichan tribes think that the moon has a frog in it." [92]

From the Great Western we turn to the Great Eastern world, and in China find the frog in the moon. "The famous astronomer Chang Heng was avowedly a disciple of Indian teachers. The statement given by Chang Heng is to the effect that 'How I, the fabled inventor of arrows in the days of Yao and Shun,[*] obtained the drug of immortality from Si w.a.n.g Mu (the fairy 'Royal Mother' of the West); and Chang Ngo (his wife) having stolen it, fled to the moon, and became the frog--_Chang-chu_--which is seen there.' The lady _Chang-ngo_ is still pointed out among the shadows in the surface of the Moon." [93] Dr. Wells Williams also tells us that in China "the sun is symbolized by the figure of a raven in a circle, and the moon by a rabbit on his hind legs pounding rice in a mortar, or by a three-legged toad. The last refers to the legend of an ancient beauty, Chang-ngo, who drank the liquor of immortality, and straightway ascended to the moon, where she was transformed into a toad, still to be traced in its face. It is a special object of wors.h.i.+p in autumn, and moon cakes dedicated to it are sold at this season." [94] We have little doubt that what the Chinese look for they see. We in the West characterize and colour objects which we behold, as we see them through the painted windows of our predisposition or prejudice. As a great novelist writes: "From the same object different conclusions are drawn; the most common externals of nature, the wind and the wave, the stars and the heavens, the very earth on which we tread, never excite in different bosoms the same ideas; and it is from our own hearts, and not from an outward source, that we draw the hues which colour the web of our existence. It is true, answered Clarence. You remember that in two specks of the moon the enamoured maiden perceived two unfortunate lovers, while the ambitious curate conjectured that they were the spires of a cathedral." [95] Besides, it must be confessed that the particular moon-patch that has awakened so much interest in every age and nation is quite as much like a frog or toad as it is like a rabbit or hare.

[*] Mr. Herbert A. Giles says that How I was a legendary chieftain, who "flourished about 2,500 B.C." _Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio_, London, 1880, i. 19, _note_.

VI. OTHER MOON MYTHS.

It is almost time that we should leave this lunar zoology; we will therefore merely present a few creatures which may be of service in a comparative anatomy of the whole subject, and then close the account. There is a story told in the Fiji Islands which so nearly approaches the Hottentot legend of the hare, that they both seem but variations of a common original. In the one case the opponent of the moon's benevolent purpose affecting man's hereafter was a hare, in the other a rat. The story thus runs: There was "a contest between two G.o.ds as to how man should die. Ra Vula (the moon) contended that man should be like himself--disappear awhile, and then live again. Ra Kalavo (the rat) would not listen to this kind proposal, but said, 'Let man die as a rat dies.' And he prevailed." [96] Mr. Tylor, who quotes this rat story, adds: "The dates of the versions seem to show that the presence of these myths among the Hottentots and Fijians, at the two opposite sides of the globe, is at any rate not due to transmission in modern times." [97]

From the rat to one of its mortal enemies is an easy transition. The Australian story is that Mityan, the moon, was a native cat, who fell in love with another's wife, and while trying to induce her to run away with him, was discovered by the husband, when a fight took place. Mityan was beaten and ran away, and has been wandering ever since. [98] We are indebted for another suggestion to Bishop Wilkins, who wrote over two centuries ago: "As for the form of those spots, _Albertus_ thinks that it represents a lion, with his tail towards the east, and his head the west; and some others have thought it to be very much like a fox, and certainly 'tis as much like a lion as that in the _zodiac_, or as _ursa major_ is like a bear." [99]

This last remark of the old mathematician is "a hit, a very palpable hit," at those unpoetical people who catalogue the constellations under all sorts of living creatures' names, implying resemblances, and then "sap with solemn sneer" our myths of the moon.

We have now seen that the moon is populated with men, women, and children,--hares and rabbits, toads and frogs, cats and dogs, and sundry small "cattle"; we observe in making our exit that it is also planted with a variety of trees; in short, is a zoological garden of a high order. Even among the ancients some said the lunar spots were forests where Diana hunted, and that the bright patches were plains.

Captain Cook tells us that in the South Pacific "the spots observed in the moon are supposed to be groves of a sort of trees which once grew in Otaheite, and, being destroyed by some accident, their seeds were carried up thither by doves, where they now flourish." [100]

Ellis also tells of these Tahitians that "their ideas of the moon, which they called _avae_ or _marama_, were as fabulous as those they entertained of the sun. Some supposed the moon was the wife of the sun; others that it was a beautiful country in which the aoa grew." [101] These arborary fancies derive additional interest, if not a species of verisimilitude, from the record of a missionary that "a stately tree, clothed with dark s.h.i.+ning leaves, and loaded with many hundreds of large green or yellowish-coloured fruit, is one of the most splendid and beautiful objects to be met with among the rich and diversified scenery of a Tahitian landscape."