Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-09-04
POWER OF THE MOON.
The Effect of the Queen of Night OF
Various Peoples.

Various Peoples.
From the Chicago Times Herald.
IF you see the new moon over your
right shoulder, it's good luck all the
mcnth"-over the left shoulder being bad
luck, of course. IF 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
when the moon is waxing will likewise
Increase, similarly decreasing while the
moon wanes. The Hindu troubled with
warts looks at the new moon, picks up q
pinch of dust from beneath his left foot,
rubs the wart with it-and when the moon
goes so does the wart. If you fall i'll you
can be cured by herbs gathered in the full
of the moon.
The Moslems ir the kingdom of Oudh
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 it's refulgent i'm
age 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 Octo-
Der, half of each, ana give 1t 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.
1t was long ago noted that the York
shirt maids do worship the new moon on
their bare knees, kneeling upon an earth
fast stone" and Lady Wilde says that the
Irish damsels drop on their knees when
they first catch sight of the new moon and
moon. 4
found us!' In India the natives take seven
threads from the end of their turbans and
give them to the new moon with prayer.
The spots on the moon are caused by
many persons or things. Sometimes it is a
man with fagot on his back, sent thither
fer picking up sticks on the Sabbath
Chaucer calls him thief and puts a thorn
bush on his shoulders. Dante saws it is no
less criminal than Cain. Shakespeare
provides dog to keep him company.
H1ndus keep, not a man, but a hare in
the moon, and the well-known connection
N the minds of the man of the moon and
insanity may account for the statement re-
garding the March hare, and possibly the
thornbush may be the distinctive covering
OF the hatter-at any rate, this is as good
guessing lot of the sun myth people
have done: while Barring Gould Identifies
the moon children, Bill and Hiuki Of the
northern mythology, with Jack and Gill of
the nursery rhyme.
The Greenland Eskimo believes that the
sun and moon were originally brother and
sister. She, being teased by him past Or
binary endurance, seized some lampblack
and rubbed it on his face. Then she ran,
her brother after. FINELY 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 bread fruit
A patient mother. unable to quiet the pangs
of her little one, looked up and said: why
don't you come down and let my baby
have a bite of you?" This made the moon
50 angry that she simply picked up both
mother and child, and they have been there
ever since.
All sailors ere certain that sleeping in
tropical moon rays will either make them
cross-eyed or blind. On the American YES
sci FL Captain year or two ago a num-
Der of the crew, disregarding the advice
of their fellows during a spell of hot wealth
er, slept on the deck in the moonlight, and
soon after went completely blind at night,
though they could see well in the day
time as ever. The skipper of the ship re-
ported the occurrence. and with it made
statement to the effect that up to that
time he had been a dsbelever In the So
called moon blink. Paul Eve Stevenson re-
ed on his way to New York from the Ba-
hamaS with the assurance from the Cap
tain that all sorts of things would happen
TO him If he slept in moonlight. This is a
disease unknown to the medical profession.