Man in the Moon Symbolism | Man in the Moon & Moon Folklore
One universal occurrence of moon lore is the sighting of a person
or creature on the moon. There is an ancient legend that the moon is inhabited
by a man with a bundle of sticks on his back. He was banished to live in
the moon because he insisted on collecting his sticks on the Sabbath, instead
of resting as he should have done (see the Geman Legend below). In Europe,
some claimed it is the face of Judas, who had been banished to the moon
as punishment. The Masai of Kenya say that the moon was beaten by her husband,
the sun, and she publicly displays her black eye and swollen lip to spite
him. Siberian tribes see a girl crouching on the moon; the moon rescued
the girl from a wolf.
Is the moon possibly responsible for the emergence of
life onto land, the speedy progress of evolution, the magnetic field that
deflects harmful radiation and our temperate climate? Remarkably, these
theories resonate with the mythologies from around the world: the moon is
the mother of humankind, keeper of rain, symbol of fertility, symbol of
the cycles of life and death.
The Man in the Moon Legend - German More than a thousand years ago, on a Sunday morning in the
early fall, an old German woodman told his wife, Gretchen, that he was going
after fagots. She begged him not to go, for it was Sunday and they did not
need the wood. The old man only laughed at her, and trudged away into the
forest where no one could see him.
He cut his bundle of fagots, piled them together, tied them with a stout
band, and throwing them over his shoulder, started homeward. Then he noticed
that the wild creatures, that had never stirred as he entered the woods
before, were now afraid of him. The birds fluttered away with a whirring
noise, and an old mother hare, which he knew very well, made wonderful leaps
to get herself and family out of his sight. Even a bear ran from him, instead
of attacking him.
Soon he met a stranger with a sad, stern face, who stopped him.
“Don't you know that this is Sunday on earth, when all must rest
from work?”
“Whether it is Sunday on earth or Monday in heaven, it is all the
same to me,” laughed the old man.
“Then carry your bundle forever, and as you do not care for Sunday
on earth, you shall have a long Monday in heaven, where you shall be a warning
to all Sabbath-breakers evermore.”
Then the old man found himself swiftly rising in the air. Quick as a
thought he was landed in the moon, where his wife saw him as she stood outside
her door that night to watch for his coming. There he still stands bearing
his fagots, and as all days are Mondays in the moon, he can never Break
Sunday Again.
THE MAN IN THE MOON. From a seal dated 1335. The legend says “I
will teach thee, Walter, why I carry thorns in the moon"
We've all heard about the harvest moon. Did you know the moon has names
for the other eleven months? Here they are:
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