VERY one knows that the moon is inhabited by a man with a bundle of sticks on his back, who has been exiled thither for many centuries, and who is so far off that he is beyond the reach of death.
He has once visited this earth, if the nursery rhyme is to be credited, when it asserts that— “The Man in the Moon Came down too soon, And asked his way to Norwich;” but whether he ever reached that city, the same authority does not state.
The story as told by nurses is, that this man was found by Moses gathering sticks on a Sabbath, and that, for this crime, he was doomed to reside in the moon till the end of all things; and they refer to Numbers xv. 32—36:
“And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones till he died.”
Of course, in the sacred writings there is no allusion to the moon.
The German tale is as follows:—
Ages ago there went one Sunday morning an old man into the wood to hew sticks. He cut a faggot and slung it on a stout staff, cast it over his shoulder, and began to trudge home with his burden. On his way he met a handsome man in Sunday suit, walking towards the Church; this man stopped and asked the faggot-bearer, “Do you know that this is Sunday on earth, when all must rest from their labors?”
“Sunday on earth, or Monday in heaven, it is all one to me!” laughed the wood-cutter.
“Then bear your bundle forever,” answered the stranger; “and as you value not Sunday on earth, yours shall be a perpetual Moon-day in heaven; and you shall stand for eternity in the moon, a warning to all Sabbath-breakers.” Thereupon the stranger vanished, and the man was caught up with his stock and his faggot into the moon, where he stands yet.
The superstition seems to be old in Germany, for the full moon is spoken of as wadel, or wedel, a faggot. Tobler relates the story thus: “An arena mā ket alawel am Sonnti holz ufglesa. Do hedem der liebe Gott dwahl gloh, öb er lieber wött ider sonn verbrenna oder im mo verfrüra, do willer lieber inn mo ihi. Dromm siedma no jetz an ma im mo inna, wenns wedel ist. Er hed a püscheli uffem rogga.” That is to say, he was given the choice of burning in the sun, or of freezing in the moon; he chose the latter; and now at full moon he is to be seen seated with his bundle of fagots on his back.
In Schaumburg-lippe, the story goes, that a man and a woman stand in the moon, the man because he strewed brambles and thorns on the church path, so as to hinder people from attending Mass on Sunday morning; the woman because she made butter on that day. The man carries his bundle of thorns, the woman her butter-tub. A similar tale is told in Swabia and in Marken. Fischart says, that there “is to be seen in the moon a manikin who stole wood,” and Prætorius, in his description of the world, that “superstitious people assert that the black flecks in the moon are a man who gathered wood on a Sabbath, and is therefore turned into stone.”
At the time when wishing was of avail, say the North Frisians, a man, one Christmas eve, stole cabbages from his neighbour’s garden. When just in the act of walking off with his load, he was perceived by the people, who conjured him up into the moon. There he stands in the full moon to be seen by every body, bearing his load of cabbages to all eternity. Every Christmas eve he is said to turn round once. Others say that he stole willow bows, which he must bear for ever.
In Silt, the story goes that he was a sheep-stealer, who enticed sheep to him with a bundle of cabbages, until, as an everlasting warning to others, he was placed in the moon, where he constantly holds in his hand a bundle of these vegetables.
The people of Rantum say that he is a giant, who at the time of the flow stands in a stooping posture, because he is then taking up water, which he pours out on the earth, and thereby causes high tide; but at the time of the ebb he stands erect, and rests from his labour, when the water can subside again.