Year: 1873

Notions about the Noon.


Men have strange fancies about earths
beautiful satellite. They have worshipped
ed it as a goddess, sung of it as the birth
place of dreams, honored it as the abiding
place of benefcient spirits empowered to
visit earth to aid good men and punish
evil-doers. Some have held the moon to


be the first home of humanity, the Para
disc lost by Ewes transgression others
have believed it to he the place to which


the souls ascend after death. Byron


wrote:


Sweet Dian's crest


Floats through the azure air an island of the blest


and a modern poetess has avowed her
faith that the wretched find rest in Luna's
serene regions. Many wise men of old
believed the moon to be world full of
life, Pythagoras boldly asserting it had its
seas and rivers, its mountains, plans and
woods, its plants far loveier than the flow
ers of earth, its animals fifteen times the
size of those familiar to mundane eyes,
ruled over by men Of larger growth and
higher mental faculties than those of earth


y mould


Leaving philosophers to speculate as to
whether the moon was or was not the
home of creatures more or less akin to hu-
mankind unphilosophical folk agreed that
the moon had one inhabitant at least, one
of their own race, whose form was pal
pable to all who had eyes to see. How he
attained his elevated position was in this
wise. While the children of Israel So
journed in the wilderness, man was
detected gathering sticks upon the Sab
bath day, whereupon he was taken with
out the camp and stoned until he died
Not satisfied with this exemplary punish
ishment of the offender by his fellowwan
derers. the Vox Populi condemned the un-
happy Sabbath-breaker to perpetual
purgatory in the moon, wherein he may
be seen, bearing his bundle Of sticks upon
his back, ever climbing without gaining a
step; accompanied by dog, faithful in
worse than death, to a master, whom an
old English song-writer pictures shudder-
ing in constant fear of fall, and shiver-
ing with cold as the frosty air bites his
back through his thorn-rent clothes.
Shakspeare's Stephano found Caliban ready
enough to believe he was the man in the
moon, dropped from the skies to become
king of the enchanted island-'I have seen
thee in her. and [ do adore thee my mis-
tress showed me thee, and thy dog, and
thy BUSH In Germany. the story runs
that, many ages ago, an old man went into
the woods to cut sticks upon Sunday
morning. Having collected as many as he
could carry, ne slung the bundle upon a
stick, shouldered it, and trud dged home
wards. He had not got far upon his way
ere be was stopped by a handsome gentle
man dressed in his Sunday best, who


inquired if he was aware it was Sunday on
earth, when every one was bound to rest
from labor. Sunday on earth or Monday
in heaven, it is all the same to me!' was
the irreverent reply. SO be it, said his
questioner bear, then, your tagot for
ever and since you do not value Sunday
on earth, you shall have an everlasting
Moon-day in demonstrating for eterni-
ty in the moon as warning to Sabbath
breakers AS he pronounced sentence,
the stranger vanished, and before the
wood -gatherer could apologize for his
rudeness, he was seized by Invisible hands,
and borne to the moon, pole, tagot, and
all. According to another version, he |
had the option of burning in the sun or
freezing in the moon, and chose the latter
as the least of two evils.


Travelling northwards, we find the bun
die of sticks transformed into load of
green-stuff. A North -Frisian, so devoid
of honest ingenuity that he could think of
no better way Of passing his Christmas
Eve than in stripping neighbor's garden
of its cabbages, was deservedly caught by
some OF the villagers as he was sneaking
away with the plunder. Indignant at the
theft, they wished the thief in the moon,
and to the moon he went instanter there
be yet stands with the stolen cabbages on
his back, turning himself round once on the
anniversary of his crime and its detection.
New Zealanders, too, claim the man in
the moon as one of themselves, their story
being that one Roma, going out at night
to fetch water from we'll, stumbled, fell
and sprained his ankle so badly, that as
he Law unable to move, he cried out with
the pain. Then, to his dismay and terror,
he beheld the moon descending towards
him, evidently bent upon capturing him.
He seized hold of tree, and clung to it
tightly, but it gave way, and fell with him
upon the moon, which carried both away.
In Swabia, not content with man, they
must needs put man and woman in
the moon: the former for strewing thorns
and brambles on the road to church, to
hinder more godly folks than himself from
attending Sunday mass the latter for max
ing butter upon the Sabbath-day.


The Cingalese transform the man into a
hare, and make the animals presence in
the orb of night reward instead of a pun
ishment. Sakyamonni, in one OF the ear
licr stages of his existence, was hare,
living in sort of partnership with an ape
and fox. One day, Indra paid the
three friends a visit in the guise of an old