"The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico and Peru to celebrate the festival of the deities of water, the patrons of agriculture, and very generally the ceremonies connected with the crops were regulated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the god of rains, Quiateot, rose in the east, thus hinting how this connection originated." [263] "The Muyscas of the high plains of Bogota were once, they said, savages without agriculture, religion, or law; but there came to them from the east an old and bearded man, Bochica, the child of the sun, and he taught them to till the fields, to clothe themselves, to worship the gods, to become a nation. But Bochica had a wicked, beautiful wife, Huythaca, who loved to spite and spoil her husband's work; and she it was who made the river swell till the land was covered by a flood, and but a few of mankind escaped upon the mountain tops. Then Bochica was wroth, and he drove the wicked Huythaca from the earth, and made her the moon, for there had been no moon before; and he cleft the rocks and made the mighty cataract of Tequendama, to let the deluge flow away. Then, when the land was dry, he gave to the remnant of mankind the year and its periodic sacrifices, and the worship of the sun. Now the people who told this myth had not forgotten, what indeed we might guess without their help, that Bochica was himself Zuhe, the sun, and Huytheca, the sun's wife, the moon." [264] This interesting and instructive legend, to which we alluded before in a brief quotation from Mr. Brinton, is worthy of reproduction in its fuller form, and fitly concludes our moon mythology and worship, as it presents a synoptical view of the chief points to which our attention has been turned. It shows us primitive or primeval man, the dawn of civilization, the daybreak of religion, the upgrowth of national life. In its solar husband and lunar wife it embraces that anthropomorphism and sexuality which we think have been and still are the principal factors in the production of legendary and religious impersonations. It includes that dualism which is one of man's oldest attempts to account for the opposition of good and evil. And finally it predicts a new humanity, springing from a remnant of the old; and a progress of brighter years, when, the deluge having disappeared, the dry land shall be fruitful in every good; when men shall worship the Father of lights, and "God shall be all in all."

[*] For further information on the universality of moon-worship, see The Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Various Nations of the Known World, by Bernard Picart. London: 1734, folio, vol. iii.



MOON SUPERSTITIONS.

I. INTRODUCTION.

Superstition may be defined as an extravagance of faith and fear: not what Ecclesiastes calls being "righteous overmuch," but religious reverence in excess. Some etymologists say that the word originally meant a "standing still over or by a thing" in fear, wonder, or dread. [265] Brewer's definition is rather more classical: "That which survives when its companions are dead (Latin, supersto). Those who escaped in battle were called superstites. Superstition is that religion which remains when real religion is dead; that fear and awe and worship paid to the religious impression which survives in the mind when correct notions of Deity no longer exist." [266] Hooker says that superstition "is always joined with a wrong opinion touching things divine. Superstition is, when things are either abhorred or observed with a zealous or fearful, but erroneous relation to God. By means whereof the superstitious do sometimes serve, though the true God, yet with needless offices, and defraud Him of duties necessary; sometimes load others than Him with such honours as properly are His." [267] A Bampton Lecturer on this subject says: "Superstition is an unreasonable belief of that which is mistaken for truth concerning the nature of God and the invisible world, our relations to these unseen objects, and the duties which spring out of those relations." [268]

We may next briefly inquire into the origin of the thing, which, of course, is older than the word. Burton will help us to an easy answer. He tells us that "the primum mobile, and first mover of all superstition, is the devil, that great enemy of mankind, the principal agent, who in a thousand several shapes, after divers fashions, with several engines, illusions, and by several names, hath deceived the inhabitants of the earth, in several places and countries, still rejoicing at their falls." [269] Verily this protean, omnipresent, and malignant devil has proved himself a great convenience! He has been the scapegoat upon whom we have laid the responsibility of all our mortal woe: and now we learn that to his infernal influence we are indebted for our ignorance and superstition. Henceforth, when we are at our wit's end, we may apostrophize the difficulty, and exclaim, "O thou invisible spirit, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!" We hesitate to spoil this serviceable illusion: for as we have known some good people, of a sort, who would be distressed to find that there was no hell to burn up the opponents of their orthodoxy; we fear lest many would be disappointed if they found out that the infernal spirit was not at the bottom of our abysmal ignorance. But we will give even the devil his due. We are not like Sir William Brown, who "could never bring himself heartily to hate the devil." We can, wherever we find him; but we think it only honest to father our own mental deficiencies, as well as our moral delinquencies, and instead of seeking a substitute to use the available remedy. "To err is human"; and it is in humanity itself that we shall discover the source of superstition. We are the descendants of ancestors who were the children of the world, and we were ourselves children not so long ago. Childhood is the age of fancy and fiction; of sensitiveness to outer influences; of impressions of things as they seem, not as they are. When we become men we put away childish things; and in the manhood of our race we shall banish many of the idols and ideas which please us while we grow. Darwin has told us that our "judgment will not rarely err from ignorance and weak powers of reasoning. Hence the strangest customs and superstitions, in complete opposition to the true welfare and happiness of mankind, have become all-powerful throughout the world. How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the mind of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, whilst the brain is impressible, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason." [270]

But if superstition be the result of imperfection, there is no gainsaying the fact that it is productive of infinite evil; and on this account it has been attributed to a diabolical paternity. Bacon even affirms that "it were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity." [271] Most heartily do we hold with Dr. Thomas Browne: "It is not enough to believe in God as an irresistible power that presides over the universe; for this a malignant demon might be. It is necessary for our devout happiness that we should believe in Him as that pure and gracious Being who is the encourager of our virtues and the comforter of our sorrows.

Quantum religio potuit suadere malorum,

exclaims the Epicurean poet, in thinking of the evils which superstition, characterized by that ambiguous name, had produced; and where a fierce or gloomy superstition has usurped the influence which religion graciously exercises only for purposes of benevolence to man, whom she makes happy with a present enjoyment, by the very expression of devout gratitude for happiness already enjoyed, it would not be easy to estimate the amount of positive misery which must result from the mere contemplation of a tyrant in the heavens, and of a creation subject to his cruelty and caprice." [272] The above quoted line from Lucretius—To such evils could religion persuade!—is more than the exclamation of righteous indignation against the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father, Agamemnon, at the bidding of a priest, to propitiate a goddess. It is still further applicable to the long chain of outrageous wrongs which have been inflicted upon the innocent at the instigation of a stupid and savage fanaticism. What is worst of all, much of this bloodthirsty religion has claimed a commission from the God of love, and performed its detestable deeds in the insulted name of that "soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit," whom the loftiest and best of men delight to adore as the Prince of peace. No wonder that Voltaire cried out, "Christian religion, behold thy consequences!" if he could calculate that ten million lives had been immolated on the altar of a spurious Christianity. One hundred thousand were slain in the Bartholomew massacre alone. Righteousness, peace, and love were not the monster which Voltaire laboured to crush: he was most intensely incensed against the blind and bigoted priesthood, against the malicious and murderous servants who ate the bread of a holy and harmless Master, against "their intolerance of light and hatred of knowledge, their fierce yet profoundly contemptible struggles with one another, the scandals of their casuistry, their besotted cruelty." [273] We have been betrayed into speaking thus strongly of the extreme lengths to which superstition will carry those who yield themselves to its ruthless tyranny. But perhaps we have not gone far from our subject, after all; for the innocent Iphigenia, whose doom kindled our ire, was sacrificed to the goddess of the moon.



II. LUNAR FANCIES.

There are a few phosphorescent fancies about the moon, like ignes fatui,

"Dancing in murky night o'er fen and lake,"

which we may dispose of in a section by themselves. Those of them that are mythical are too evanescent to become full-grown myths; and those which are religious are too volatile to remain in the solution or salt of any bottled creed. Like the wandering lights of the Russians, answering to our will-o'-the-wisp, they are the souls of still-born children. There is, for example, the insubstantial and formless but pleasing conception of the Indian Veda. In the Ramayanam the moon is a good fairy, who in giving light in the night assumes a benignant aspect and succours the dawn. In the Vedic hymn, Raka, the full moon, is exhorted to sew the work with a needle which cannot be broken. Here the moon is personified as preparing during the night her luminous garments, one for the evening, the other for the morning, the one lunar and of silver, the other solar and of gold. [274] Another notion, equally airy but more religious, has sprung up in Christian times and in Catholic countries. It is that heathen fancy which connects the moon with the Virgin Mary. Abundant evidence of this association in the minds of Roman Catholics is furnished by the style of the ornaments which crowd the continental churches. One of the most conspicuous is the sun and moon in conjunction, precisely as they are represented on Babylonian and Grecian coins; and the identification of the Virgin and her Child with the moon any Roman Catholic cathedral will show. [275] The Roman Missal will present to any reader "Sancta Maria, coeli Regina, et mundi Domina"; the Glories of Mary will exhibit her as the omnipotent mother, Queen of the Universe; and Ecclesiastical History will declare how, as early as the close of the fourth century, the women who were called Collyridians worshipped her "as a goddess, and judged it necessary to appease her anger, and seek her favour and protection, by libations, sacrifices, and oblations of cakes (collyridae)." [276] This is but a repetition of the women kneading dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven, as recorded by Jeremiah; and proves that the relative position occupied by Astarte in company with Baal, Juno with Jupiter, Doorga with Brahma, and Ma-tsoo-po with Boodh, is that occupied by Mary with God. Nay more, she is "Mater Creatoris" and "Dei Genetrix": Mother of the Creator, Mother of God. Having thus been enthroned in the position in the universal pantheon which was once occupied by the moon, what wonder that the ignorant devotee should see her in that orb, especially as the sun, moon, and stars of the Apocalypse are her chief symbols. Southey has recorded a good illustration of this superstitious fancy. "A fine circumstance occurred in the shipwreck of the Santiago, 1585. The ship struck in the night; the wretched crew had been confessing, singing litanies, etc., and this they continued till, about two hours before break of day, the moon arose beautiful and exceeding bright; and forasmuch as till that time they had been in such darkness that they could scarcely sec one another when close at hand, such was the stir among them at beholding the brightness and glory of that orb, that most part of the crew began to lift up their voices, and with tears, cries, and groans called upon Our Lady, saying they saw her in the moon." [277]

The preceding fancies would produce upon the poetic and religious sense only an agreeable effect. Other hallucinations have wrought effects of an opposite kind. The face in the moon does not always wear an amiable aspect, and it is not unnatural that those who have been taught to believe in angry gods and frowning providences should see the caricatures of their false teachers reproduced in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. We are reminded here of the magic mirror mentioned by Bayle. There is a trick, invented by Pythagoras, which is performed in the following manner. The moon being at the full, some one writes with blood on a looking-glass anything he has a mind to; and having given notice of it to another person, he stands behind that other and turns towards the moon the letters written in the glass. The other looking fixedly on the shining orb reads in it all that is written on the mirror as if it were written on the moon. [278] This is precisely the modus operandi by which the knavish have imposed upon the foolish in all ages. The manipulator of the doctrine stands behind his credulous disciple, writing out of sight his invented science or theology, and writing too often with the blood of some innocent victim. The poor patient student is meanwhile gazing on the moon in dreamy devotion; until as the writing on the mirror is read with solemn intonation, it all appears before his moon-struck gaze as a heavenly revelation. Woe to the truth-loving critic who breaks the enchantment and the mirror, crying out in the vernacular tongue, Your mysteries are myths, your writings are frauds; and the fair moon is innocent of the lying imposition!

To multitudes the moon has always been an object of terror and dread. Not only is it a supramundane and magnified man—that it will always be while its spots are so anthropoid, and man himself is so anthropomorphic—but it has ever been, and still is, a being of maleficent and misanthropic disposition. As Mr. Tylor says, "When the Aleutians thought that if any one gave offence to the moon, he would fling down stones on the offender and kill him; or when the moon came down to an Indian squaw, appearing in the form of a beautiful woman with a child in her arms, and demanding an offering of tobacco and fur-robes: what conceptions of personal life could be more distinct than these?" [279] Personal and distinct, indeed, but far from pleasant. Another author tells us that "in some parts of Scotland to point at the stars or to do aught that might be considered an indignity in the face of the sun or moon, is still to be dreaded and avoided; so also it was not long since, probably still is, in Devonshire and Cornwall. The Jews seem to have been equally superstitious on this point (Jer. viii. 1, 2), and the Persians believed leprosy to be an infliction on those who had committed some offence against the sun." [280] Southey supplies us with an illustration of the moon in a fit of dudgeon. He is describing the sufferings of poor Hans Stade, when he was caught by the Tupinambas and expected that he was about to die. "The moon was up, and fixing his eyes upon her, he silently besought God to vouchsafe him a happy termination of these sufferings. Yeppipo Wasu, who was one of the chiefs of the horde, and as such had convoked the meeting, seeing how earnestly he kept gazing upwards, asked him what he was looking at. Hans had ceased from praying, and was observing the man in the moon, and fancying that he looked angry; his mind was broken down by continual terror, and he says it seemed to him at that moment as if he were hated by God, and by all things which God had created. The question only half roused him from this phantasy, and he answered, it was plain that the moon was angry. The savage asked whom she was angry with, and then Hans, as if he had recollected himself, replied that she was looking at his dwelling. This enraged him, and Hans found it prudent to say that perhaps her eyes were turned so wrathfully upon the Carios; in which opinion the chief assented, and wished she might destroy them all." [281] Some such superstitious fear must have furnished the warp into which the following Icelandic story was woven. "There was once a sheep-stealer who sat down in a lonely place, with a leg of mutton in his hand, in order to feast upon it, for he had just stolen it. The moon shone bright and clear, not a single cloud being there in heaven to hide her. While enjoying his gay feast, the impudent thief cut a piece off the meat, and, putting it on the point of his knife, accosted the moon with these godless words:—

'O moon, wilt thou On thy mouth now This dainty bit of mutton-meat?'

Then a voice came from the heavens, saying:—

'Wouldst thou, thief, like Thy cheek to strike This fair key, scorching-red with heat?'

At the same moment, a red-hot key fell from the sky on to the cheek of the thief, burning on it a mark which he carried with him ever afterwards. Hence arose the custom in ancient times of branding or marking thieves." [282] The moral influence of this tale is excellent, and has the cordial admiration of all who hate robbery and effrontery: at the same time it exhibits the moon as an irascible body, with which no liberty may be taken. In short, it is an object of superstitious awe.

One other lunar fancy, born and bred in fear, is connected with the abominable superstition of witchcraft. Abominable, unquestionably, the evil was; but justice compels us to add that the remedy of relentless and ruthless persecution with which it was sought to remove the pest was a reign of abhorrent and atrocious cruelty. Into the question itself we dare not enter, lest we should be ourselves bewitched. We know that divination by supposed supernatural agency existed among the Hebrews, that magical incantations were practised among the Greeks and Romans, and that more modern witchcraft has been contemporaneous with the progress of Christianity. But we must dismiss the subject in one borrowed sentence. "The main source from which we derived this superstition is the East, and traditions and facts incorporated in our religion. There were only wanted the ferment of thought of the fifteenth century, the energy, ignorance, enthusiasm, and faith of those days, and the papal denunciation of witchcraft by the bull of Innocent the Eighth, in 1459, to give fury to the delusion. And from this time, for three centuries, the flames at which more than a hundred thousand victims perished cast a lurid light over Europe." [283] The singular notion, which we wish to present, is the ancient belief that witches could control the moon. In the Clouds of Aristophanes, Strepsiades tells Socrates that he has "a notion calculated to deprive of interest"; which is as follows:—

"Str. If I were to buy a Thessalian witch, and draw down the moon by night, then shut her up in a round helmet-case, like a mirror, and then keep watching her—"

"Soc. What good would that do you, then?"

"Str. What? If the moon were not to rise any more anywhere, I should not pay the interest."

"Soc. Because what?"

"Str. Because the money is lent by the month." [284]

Shakespeare alludes to this, where Prospero says, "His mother was a witch, and one so strong that could control the moon" (Tempest, Act v.).

If the witch's broom, on whose stick she rode to the moon, be a type of the wind, we may guess how the fancy grew up that the airy creation could control those atmospheric vapours on which the light and humidity of the night were supposed to depend. [285]



III. LUNAR ECLIPSES.

All round the globe, from time immemorial, those periodic phenomena known as solar and lunar eclipses have been occasions of mental disquietude and superstitious alarm. Though now regarded as perfectly natural and regular, they have seemed so preternatural and irregular to the unscientific eye that we cannot wonder at the consternation which they have caused. And it must be confessed that a total obscuration of the sun in the middle of the day casts such a gloom over the earth that men not usually timid are still excusable if during the parenthesis they feel a temporary uneasiness, and are relieved when the ruler of the day emerges from his dark chamber, apparently rejoicing to renew his race. An eclipse of the moon, though less awe-inspiring, is nevertheless sufficiently so to awaken in the superstitious brain fearful forebodings of impending calamity. Science may demonstrate that there is nothing abnormal in these occurrences, but to the seeker after signs it wilt be throwing words away; for, as Lord Kames says, "Superstitious eyes are never opened by instruction."

We will now produce a number of testimonies to show how these lunar eclipses have been viewed among the various races of the earth in ancient and modern times. The Chaldaeans were careful observers of eclipses, and Berosus believed that when the moon was obscured she turned to us her dark side. Anaximenes said that her mouth was stopped. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Mathematicians said that she fell into conjunction with the bright sun. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (born B.C. 499) was the first to explain the eclipse of the moon as caused by the shadow of the earth cast by the sun. But he was as one born out of due time. We are all familiar with the use made by students of unfulfilled prophecy of every extraordinary occurrence in nature, such as the sudden appearance of a comet, an earthquake, an eclipse, etc. We know how mysteriously they interpret those simple passages in the Bible about the sun being darkened and the moon being turned into blood. If they were not wilfully blind, such facts as are established by the following quotations would open their eyes to the errors in their exegesis. At any rate, they would find their theories anticipated in nearly every particular by those very heathen whom they are wont to pity as so benighted and hopelessly lost.

Grimm writes: "One of the most terrible phenomena to heathens was an eclipse of the sun or moon, which they associated with a destruction of all things and the end of the world. I may safely assume that the same superstitious notions and practices attend eclipses among nations ancient and modern. The Indian belief is that a serpent eats up the sun and moon when they arc eclipsed, or a demon devours them. To this day the Hindoos consider that a giant lays hold of the luminaries and tries to swallow them. The Chinese call the solar eclipse zhishi (solis devoratio), the lunar yueshi (lunae devoratio), and ascribe them both to the machinations of a dragon. Nearly all the populations of Northern Asia hold the same opinion. The Finns of Europe, the Lithuanians, and the Moors in Africa, have a similar belief." [286] Flammarion says: "Among the ancient nations people used to come to the assistance of the moon, by making a confused noise with all kinds of instruments, when it was eclipsed. It is even done now in Persia and some parts of China, where they fancy that the moon is fighting with a great dragon, and they think the noise will make him loose his hold and take to flight. Among the East Indians they have the same belief that when the sun and the moon are eclipsed, a dragon is seizing them, and astronomers who go there to observe eclipses are troubled by the fears of their native attendants, and by their endeavours to get into the water as the best place under the circumstances. In America the idea is that the sun and moon are tired when they are eclipsed. But the more refined Greeks believed for a long time that the moon was bewitched, and that the magicians made it descend from heaven to put into the herbs a certain maleficent froth. Perhaps the idea of the dragon arose from the ancient custom of calling the places in the heavens at which the eclipses of the moon took place the head and tail of the dragon." [287] Sir Edward Sherburne, in his "Annotations upon the Medea," quaintly says: "Of the beating of kettles, basons, and other brazen vessels used by the ancients when the moone was eclipsed (which they did to drown the charms of witches, that the moon might not hear them, and so be drawne from her spheare as they suppos'd), I shall not need to speake, being a thing so generally knowne, a custom continued among the Turks to this day; yet I cannot but adde, and wonder at, what Joseph Scaliger, in his 'Annotations upon Manilius,' reports out of Bonincontrius, an ancient commentator upon the same poet, who affirms that in a town of Italy where he lived (within these two centuries of yeares), he saw the same piece of paganisme acted upon the like occasion." [288] Another, and more recent writer, also says of these eclipses: "The Chinese imagine them to be caused by great dragons trying to devour the sun and moon, and beat drums and brass kettles to make the monsters give up their prey. Some of the tribes of American Indians speak of the moon as hunted by huge dogs, catching and tearing her till her soft light is reddened and put out by the blood flowing from her wounds. To this day in India the native beats his gong, as the moon passes across the sun's face, and it is not so very long ago that in Europe both eclipses and rushing comets were thought to show that troubles were near." [289] Respecting China, a modern traveller speaks in not very complimentary language. "If there is on the earth a nation absorbed by the affairs of this world and who trouble themselves little about what passes among the heavenly bodies, it is assuredly the Chinese. The most erudite among them just know of the existence of astronomy, or, as they call it, tienwen—'celestial literature.' But they are ignorant of the simplest principles of the science, and those who regard an eclipse as a natural phenomenon, instead of a dragon who is seeking to devour the sun and moon, are enlightened indeed." [290] This statement ought to be taken with more than one granum salis, especially as Mrs. Somerville assures us that the Chinese had made advances in the science of astronomy 1,100 years before the Christian era, and also adds: "Their whole chronology is founded on the observation of eclipses, which prove the existence of that empire for more than 4,700 years." [291] With this discount the charge against Chinese ignorance may be passed. "A Mongolian myth makes out that the gods determined to punish Arakho for his misdeeds, but he hid so effectually that no one could find out his lurking-place. They therefore asked the sun, who gave an unsatisfactory answer; but when they asked the moon, she disclosed his whereabouts. So Arakho was dragged forth and chastised; in revenge of which he pursues both sun and moon, and whenever he comes to hand-grips with one of them, an eclipse occurs. To help the lights of heaven in their sad plight, a tremendous uproar is made with musical and other instruments, till Arakho is scared away." [292] "Referring to the Shoo, Pt. III., Bk. IV., parag. 4, we find this sentence: 'On the first day of the last month of autumn the sun and moon did not meet harmoniously in Fang.'" [293] In less euphemistic phrase, the sun and moon were crossed.

Dr. Wells Williams describes an interesting scene. "In the middle of the sixth moon lanterns are hung from the top of a pole placed on the highest part of the house. A single small lantern is deemed sufficient, but if the night be calm, a greater display is made by some householders, and especially in boats, by exhibiting coloured glass lamps arranged in various ways. The illumination of a city like Canton, when seen from a high spot, is made still more brilliant by the moving boats on the river. On one of these festivals at Canton, an almost total eclipse of the moon called out the entire population, each one carrying something with which to make a noise, kettles, pans, sticks, drums, gongs, guns, crackers, and what not to frighten away the dragon of the sky from his hideous feast. The advancing shadow gradually caused the myriads of lanterns to show more and more distinctly, and started a still increasing clamour, till the darkness and the noise were both at their climax. Silence gradually resumed its sway as the moon recovered her fulness." [294] On another page Dr. Williams tells us that "some clouds having on one occasion covered the sky, so that an eclipse could not be seen, the courtiers joyfully repaired to the emperor to felicitate him that Heaven, touched by his virtues, had spared him the pain of witnessing the 'eating of the sun.'" [295] The following passage from Doolittle's work on the Chinese is sufficiently interesting to be given without abridgment: "It is a part of the official duties of mandarins to 'save the sun and moon when eclipsed.' Prospective eclipses are never noticed in the Imperial Calendar, published originally at Peking, and republished in the provinces. The imperial astronomers at the capital, a considerable time previous to a visible eclipse, inform the Board of Rites of its month, day, and hour. These officers send this intelligence to the viceroys or governors of the eighteen provinces of the empire. These, in turn, communicate the information to all the principal subordinate officers in the provinces of the civil and the military grade. The officers make arrangements to save the moon or the sun at the appointed time. On the day of the eclipse, or on the day preceding it, some of them put up a written notice in or near their yamuns, for the information of the public.

"The Chinese generally have no rational idea of the cause of eclipses. The common explanation is that the sun or the moon has experienced some disaster. Some even affirm that the object eclipsed is being devoured by an immense ravenous monster. This is the most popular sentiment in Fuhchau in regard to the procuring cause of eclipses. All look upon the object eclipsed with wonder. Many are filled with apprehension and terror. Some of the common people, as well as mandarins generally, enter upon some course of action, the express object of which is to save the luminary from its dire calamity, or to rescue it from the jaws of its greedy enemy. Mandarins must act officially, and in virtue of their being officers of government. Neither they nor the people seem to regard the immense distance of the celestial object as at all interfering with the success of their efforts. The various obstacles which ought apparently to deter them from attempting to save the object eclipsed do not seem to have occurred to them at all, or, if they have occurred, do not appear to be sufficient to cause them to desist from prosecuting their laudable endeavours. The high mandarins procure the aid of priests of the Taoist sect at their yamuns. These place an incense censer and two large candlesticks for holding red candles or tapers on a table in the principal reception room of the mandarin, or in the open space in front of it under the open heavens.

"At the commencement of the eclipse the tapers are lighted, and soon after the mandarin enters, dressed in his official robes. Taking some sticks of lighted incense in both hands, he makes his obeisance before or facing the table, raising and depressing the incense two or three times, according to the established fashion, before it is placed in the censer. Or sometimes the incense is lighted and put in the censer by one of the priests employed. The officer proceeds to perform the high ceremony of kneeling down three times, and knocking his head on the ground nine times. After this he rises from his knees. Large gongs and drums near by are now beaten as loudly as possible. The priests begin to march slowly around the tables, reciting formulas, etc., which marching they keep up, with more or less intermissions, until the eclipse has passed off.

"A uniform result always follows these official efforts to save the sun and the moon. They are invariably successful. There is not a single instance recorded in the annals of the empire when the measures prescribed in instructions from the emperor's astronomers at Peking, and correctly carried out in the provinces by the mandarins, have not resulted in a complete rescue of the object eclipsed. Doubtless the vast majority of the common people in China believe that the burning of tapers and incense, the prostration of the mandarins, the beating of the gongs and drums, and the recitations on the part of the priests, are signally efficacious in driving away the voracious monster. They observe that the sun or the moon does not seem to be permanently injured by the attacks of its celestial enemy, although a half or nearly the whole appeared to have been swallowed up. This happy result is doubtless viewed with much complacency by the parties engaged to bring it about. The lower classes generally leave the saving of the sun or the moon, when eclipsed, to their mandarins, as it is a part of their official business. Some of the people occasionally beat in their houses a winnowing instrument, made of bamboo splints, on the occasion of an eclipse. This gives out a loud noise. Some venture to assert that the din of this instrument penetrates the clouds as high as the very temple of Heaven itself! The sailors connected with junks at this place, on the recurrence of a lunar eclipse, always contribute their aid to rescue the moon by beating their gongs in a most deafening manner.

"Without doubt, most of the mandarins understand the real occasion of eclipses, or, at least, they have the sense to perceive that nothing which they can do will have any effect upon the object eclipsed, or the cause which produces the phenomenon; but they have no optional course in regard to the matter. They must comply with established custom, and with the understood will of their superiors. The imperial astronomers, having been taught the principles of astronomy and the causes which produce eclipses by the Roman Catholic missionaries a long while since, of course know that the common sentiments on the subject are as absurd as the common customs relating to it are useless. But the emperor and his cabinet cling to ancient practices, notwithstanding the clearest evidences of their false and irrational character." [296]

Mr. Herbert Giles accounts for this Chinese obtuseness, or, as some would have it, opacity, in much the same way. Under the head of Natural Phenomena, he writes: "It is a question of more than ordinary interest to those who regard the Chinese people as a worthy object of study, What are the speculations of the working and uneducated classes concerning such natural phenomena as it is quite impossible for them to ignore? Their theory of eclipses is well known, foreign ears being periodically stunned by the gonging of an excited crowd of natives, who are endeavouring with hideous noises to prevent some imaginary dog of colossal proportions from banqueting, as the case may be, upon the sun or moon. At such laughable exhibitions of native ignorance it will be observed there is always a fair sprinkling of well-to-do, educated persons, who not only ought to know better themselves, but should be making some effort to enlighten their less fortunate countrymen instead of joining in the din. Such a hold, however, has superstition on the minds of the best informed in a Chinese community, that under the influence of any real or supposed danger, philosophy and Confucius are scattered to the four winds of heaven, and the proudest disciple of the master proves himself after all but a man." [297] No doubt Mr. Doolittle and Mr. Giles are both right: custom and superstition form a twisted rope which pinions the popular mind. But there is yet another strand to be mentioned which makes the bond a threefold cord which it will take some time to break. Prescriptive right requires that the official or cultured class in China, answering to the clerical caste elsewhere, should keep the other classes in ignorance; because, if science and religion are fellow-helpers, science and superstition can never dwell together, and the downfall of superstition in China would be the destruction of imperial despotism and magisterial tyranny. "Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. But this Paul says that they be no gods, which are made with hands: so that our craft is in danger to be set at nought. Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" The mandarins know why they encourage the mechanics and merchants to save the moon.

We once met a good story in reading one of Jean Astruc's medical works. "Theodore de Henry, of Paris, coming one time into the church of St. Dionis, he fell prostrate at the foot of the statue of Charles the Eighth, as in a sudden fit of devotion. When being told by one of the monks that was not the image of any saint, he replied, he was not ignorant of that, but was willing to pay a grateful acknowledgment to the memory of that prince who had brought the Morbus Gallicus into France, by which he had made his own fortune." Herein lies the secret of half of the hypocrisy of the world. Thank God! the world moves; and the millennium of truth is at hand.

The literature of China is, happily, not all linsey-woolsey. The following sample is of the finest silk, worthy to adorn the purest saint.

"MING TI of the HOUSE of WEI.

"Reigned 227-239 A.D.

"On an Eclipse.—A Rescript. WE have heard that if a sovereign is remiss in government, Heaven terrifies him by calamities and strange portents. These are divine reprimands sent to recall him to a sense of duty. Thus, partial eclipses of the sun and moon are manifest warnings that the rod of empire is not wielded aright. Ever since WE ascended the throne, OUR inability to continue the glorious traditions of our departed ancestors and carry on the great work of civilization, has now culminated in a warning message from on high. It therefore behoves Us to issue commands for personal reformation, in order to avert the impending calamity.

"But the relations of Heaven with Man are those of a father and son; and a father about to chastise his son would not be deterred were the latter to present him with a dish of meat. WE do not therefore consider it part of OUR duty to act in accordance with certain memorials advising that the prime minister and chief astronomer be instructed to offer up sacrifices on this occasion. Do ye, governors of districts and other high officers of State, seek rather to rectify your own hearts; and if any one can devise means to make up for OUR shortcomings, let him submit his proposals to the Throne." [298]

The writer of that was "not far from the kingdom of God."

Father Borri, in his account of Cochin China, describes the effect of a lunar eclipse upon several scholars in the city of Nuoecman in the province of Pulucambi. "I showed them that the circle of the moon, on that side the eclipse began, was not so perfect as it should be, and soon after all the moon being darkened, they perceived the truth of my prediction. The commander and all of them being astonished, presently sent to give notice of it to all the ward, and spread the news of the eclipse throughout the city, that every man might go out to make the usual noise in favour of the moon; giving out everywhere that there were no such men as the fathers, whose doctrine and books could not fail being true, since they had so exactly foretold the eclipse, which their learned men had taken no notice of; and therefore, in performance of his promise, the commander with all his family became Christians, as did many more of his ward, with some of the most learned men of the city and others of note." [299] In no unkind spirit we cannot refrain from noticing, what will strike every reader, how ready divines of all denominations are to turn the teachings of science to their own account in the propagation of their faith. It would have been seemlier for theologians in all ages, if their attitude towards physical inquirers had been less hostile; they would then have made converts through eclipses with a better grace. They would, moreover, have prevented the alienation of many of their truest friends.

Captain Beeckman gives an amusing story of an eclipse in Cantongee, in the island of Borneo, on the 10th of November, 1714. "We sat very merry till about eight at night, when, preparing to go to bed, we heard all on a sudden a most terrible outcry, mixed with squealing, halloing, whooping, firing of guns, ringing and clattering of gongs or brass pans, that we were greatly startled, imagining nothing less but that the city was surprised by the rebels. I ran immediately to the door, where I found my old fat landlord roaring and whooping like a man raving mad. This increased my astonishment, and the noise was so great that I could neither be heard, nor get an answer to know what the matter was. At last I cried as loud as possibly I could to the old man to know the reason of this sad confusion and outcry, who in a great fright pointed up to the heavens, and said, 'Look there; see, the devil is eating up the moon!' I was very glad to hear that there was no other cause of their fright but their own ignorance. It was only a great eclipse of the moon. I smiled, and told him that there was no danger; that in a little while the moon would be as well as ever. Whereupon, catching fast hold of my sleeve, as I was returning to bed, he asked me if I was sure on't (for they take us white men to be very wise in those matters). I assured him I was, and that we always knew many years before when such a thing would happen; that it proceeded from a natural cause, according to the course and motion of the sun and moon, and that the devil had no hand in it. After the eclipse was over, the old man, being not a little rejoiced, took me in." [300] Another writer speaks of the East India Islands in general. "There is to this day hardly a country of the Archipelago in which the ceremony of frightening the supposed monster from his attack on the luminary is not performed. This consists in shouting, in striking gongs, but, above all, in striking their stampers against the sides of the wooden mortars which are used by the villagers in husking their corn." [301] That the Indians of the continent regard the phenomena in question with more than ordinary interest is evinced by their resorting in large numbers to Benares, the ancient seat of brahminical learning and religion, on every occasion of an eclipse of the moon. Lord Kames reminds us that among the Greeks "an eclipse being held a prognostic given by the gods of some grievous calamity, Anaxagoras was accused of atheism for attempting to explain the eclipse of the moon by natural causes: he was thrown into prison, and with difficulty was relieved by the influence of Pericles. Protagoras was banished Athens for maintaining the same doctrine." [302]

Thucydides tells us that an eclipse of the moon delayed the departure of the expedition against the Syracusans. "The preparations were made, and they were on the point of sailing, when the moon, being just then at the full, was eclipsed. The mass of the army was greatly moved, and called upon the generals to remain. Nicias himself, who was too much under the influence of divination and omens, refused even to discuss the question of their removal until they had remained thrice nine days, as the soothsayers prescribed. This was the reason why the departure of the Athenians was finally delayed." [303]

"At any eclipse of the moone, the Romanes would take their brazen pots and pannes, and beat them, lifting up many torches and linckes lighted, and firebrandes into the aire, thinking by these superstitious meanes to reclaime the moone to her light." [304]

The Constantinople Messenger of December 23rd, 1880, contains the following:—"Mgr. Mamarbasci, who represents the Syrian Patriarch at the Porte, and who resides in St. Peter's Monastery in Galata, underwent a singular experience on the evening of the last eclipse of the moon. Hearing a great noise outside of the firing of revolvers and pistols, he opened his window to see what could be the cause of so much waste of powder. Being a native of Aleppo, he was at no loss to understand the cause of the disturbance as soon as he cast his eye on the heavens, and he therefore immediately withdrew his head from the window again. Hardly had he done so, however, ere a ball smashed the glass into a thousand pieces. Rising from the seat into which he had but just sat down, he perceived a conical ball on the floor of his room, which there is every reason to believe would have killed him on the spot had he remained a moment longer on the spot he had just quitted. From the yard of the mosque of Arab-Djami, which is in front of the prelate's window, the bullet had, it appears, been fired with the intention of frightening the dragon or bear which, according to oriental superstition, lies in wait to devour the moon at its eclipse. It is a fortunate circumstance that the Syrian ecclesiastic escaped scathless from the snares laid to destroy the celestial dragon." [305]

In the Edda, an ancient collection of Scandinavian poetry, embodying the national mythology, Managarmer is the monster who sometimes swallows up the moon, and stains the heaven and the air with blood. "Here," says M. Mallett, "we have the cause of eclipses; and it is upon this very ancient opinion that the general practice is founded, of making noises at that time, to fright away the monster, who would otherwise devour the two great luminaries." [306] Of the Germans, Grimm says:—"In a lighted candle, if a piece of the wick gets half detached and makes it burn away too fast, they say 'a wolf (as well as a thief) is in the candle'; this too is like the wolf devouring the sun or moon. Eclipses of sun or moon have been a terror to many heathen nations; the incipient and increasing obscuration of the luminous orb marks for them the moment when the gaping jaws of the wolf threaten to devour it, and they think by loud cries to bring it succour." [307] And again:—"The personality of the sun and moon shows itself moreover in a fiction that has well-nigh gone the round of the world. These two, in their unceasing unflagging career through the void of heaven, appear to be in flight, avoiding some pursuer. A pair of wolves are on their track, Skoell dogging the steps of the sun, Hati of the moon: they come of a giant race, the mightiest of whom, Managarmr (moon-dog), apparently but another name for Hati, is sure some day to overtake and swallow the moon." [308] Francis Osborn, whose Advice contains, in the opinion of Hallam, "a considerable sprinkling of sound sense and observation," thus counsels his son: "Imitate not the wild Irish or Welch, who, during eclipses, run about beating kettles and pans, thinking their clamour and vexations available to the assistance of the higher orbs." [309] "In eclipses of the moon, the Greenlanders carry boxes and kettles to the roofs of their houses, and beat on them as hard as they can." [310] With the Californian Indians, "on an eclipse, all is consternation. They congregate and sing, as some say to appease, and others to frighten, the evil spirits. They believe that the devils are eating up the luminary, and they do not cease until it comes forth in its wonted splendour." [311] Among certain Indian tribes "dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar relation to the moon, probably because they howl at it, and run at night; uncanny practices which have cost them dear in reputation. The custom prevailed among tribes so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois, Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos, to thrash the curs most soundly during an eclipse. The Creeks explained this by saying that the big dog was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the little ones they could make him desist. What the big dog was they were not prepared to say. We know. It was the night goddess, represented by the dog, who was thus shrouding the world at midday." [312]

It is well known that Columbus found his acquaintance with the calculations of astronomy of great practical value. For when, during his last expedition, he was reduced to famine by the inhabitants of the newly discovered continent, who kept him and his companions prisoners, he, aware that an eclipse was at hand, threatened to deprive them of the light of the moon, if they did not forthwith bring him provisions. At first they did not care; but when the moon disappeared, they brought abundance of supplies, with much entreaty of pardon. This occurred on the 1st day of March, 1504, a date which modern tables of lunar eclipses may fully verify.

"In the Mexican mythology we read of the woman serpent, or the moon, devoured by the sun, a myth probably descriptive of the changes in the phases of the moon." [313] More probably this myth referred to the moon's eclipse; for Bradford tells us that "the Mexicans believed when there was an eclipse of the sun or moon, that one of those bodies was being devoured by the other. The Peruvians believed these phenomena portended some great calamity; that the eclipsed body was sick and about to die, in which case the world would perish. As soon as an eclipse commenced, they made a dreadful noise with their musical instruments; they struck their dogs and made them howl, in the hope that the moon, which they believed had an affection for those animals in consequence of some signal service which they had rendered her, would have pity on their cries. The Araucanians called eclipses the 'deaths' of the sun and moon." [314] In Aglio we are told of the Mexicans that "in the year of Five Rabbits, or in 1510, there was an eclipse of the sun; they take no account of the eclipses of the moon, but only of those of the sun; for they say that the sun devours the moon when an eclipse of the moon takes place." [315] "The Tlascaltecs, regarding the sun and the moon as husband and wife, believed eclipses to be domestic quarrels. Ribas tells how the Sinaloas held that the moon in an eclipse was darkened with the dust of battle. Her enemy had come upon her, and a terrible fight, big with consequence to those on earth, went on in heaven. In wild excitement the people beat on the sides of their houses, encouraging the moon, and shooting flights of arrows up into the sky to distract her adversary. Much the same as this was also done by certain Californians." [316] "At a lunar eclipse the Orinoko Indians seized their hoes and laboured with exemplary vigour on their growing corn, saying the moon was veiling herself in anger at their habitual laziness." [317] The umbrated moon did good in this way: as many of us remember the beautiful comet of 1858 did good, when it frightened some trembling Londoners into a speedy settlement of old debts, in anticipation of the final account. Ellis says of the Tahitians: "An eclipse of the moon filled them with dismay; they supposed the planet was natua, or under the influence of the spell of some evil spirit that was destroying it. Hence they repaired to the temple, and offered prayers for the moon's release. Some imagined that on an eclipse, the sun and moon were swallowed by the god which they had by neglect offended. Liberal presents were offered, which were supposed to induce the god to abate his anger, and eject the luminaries of day and night from his stomach." [318] The Tongans or Friendly Islanders have a notion that the earth's surface is flat, that the sun and moon "pass through the sky and come back some way, they know not how. When the moon is eclipsed, they attribute the phenomenon to a thick cloud passing over it: the same with the sun." [319] In the Hervey Islands, the common exclamation during an eclipse is, "Alas! a divinity has devoured the moon!"

Finally, to close this chapter where it commenced, in Chaldaea, the cradle of star-reading, Sir Austen Henry Layard says: "I gained, as other travellers have done before me, some credit for wisdom and superhuman knowledge by predicting, through the aid of an almanack, a partial eclipse of the moon. It duly took place, to the great dismay of my guests, who well-nigh knocked out the bottoms of all my kitchen utensils in their endeavour to frighten away the jins who had thus laid hold of the planet. The common notion amongst ignorant Mahometans is, that an eclipse is caused by some evil spirit catching hold of the sun or moon. On such occasions, in Eastern towns, the whole population assembles with pots, pans, and other equally rude instruments of music, and, with the aid of their lungs, make a din and turmoil which might suffice to drive away a whole army of evil spirits, even at so great a distance." [320] We have reached three general conclusions. First, when the moon is occulted by the earth it is believed to be devoured by some evil demon, or by wolves or dogs. This is the superstitious vagary of the Hindoos, the Chinese, Asiatics generally, Europeans, Africans, Americans, and Polynesians. Secondly, a lunar eclipse is the precursor of some dreadful calamity to the inhabitants of the earth. This notion is also traceable in every quarter of the globe. And thirdly, during the obscuration the light of the moon is reddened, and at last extinguished, by the blood which flows from its wounds; which belief originates with the Edda, and obtains in the Western world. Students of sacred prophecy may still elect to deem these occurrences that are purely natural as of supernatural significance, and may risk the interests of true religion in their insane disregard of science; but the truth will remain, in spite of their misconceptions, that eclipses of the moon have no concern with the moral destiny of mankind.



IV. LUNAR INFLUENCES.

The superficies of the earth being twice seven times that of the moon, what an influence the earth must exercise over its satellite! We may be unable to describe this influence in all of its effects; but we may observe its existence in some of its apparent signs. The moon not only turns while we turn, but its rotations on its axis keep exact time with its revolutions round our globe; it accompanies us as we encircle the sun, facing us all the while, never turning its back upon us; it waits on us like a link-bearer, or lackey; is our admiring Boswell, living and moving and having its being in the equability it derives from attending its illustrious master. An African sage once illustrated this philosophical principle of the greater controlling the less, by the following fine conundrum. "Why does the dog waggle his tail?" This problem, being beyond his auditors, was given up. The sage made answer, "Because the dog is bigger than the tail; else the tail would waggle the dog." It is alarming to contemplate the effect which the moon might have upon our august earth, if it were fourteen times larger instead of fourteen times smaller in extent of surface. As it is, Luna's influences are so many and so mighty, that we will require considerable space merely to set them in order, and to substantiate them with a few facts. We believe that most, if not all, of them, are the offspring of superstition; but we shall none the less find them in every land, in every age. In the nineteenth century as well as in the dark ages, in London as well as in the ends of the earth, men of all colours and clans are found turning their faces heavenward to read their duty and destiny in the oracular face of the moon. Many consult their almanacks more than their Bibles, and follow the lunar phases as their sole interpretation of the will of God.

Among those who worship the moon as a personal deity, whether beneficent or malign, its influences are of course welcomed or dreaded as the manifestations of supreme power. In South America, for example, "the Botocudos are said to give the highest rank among the heavenly bodies to Taru, the moon, as causing thunder and lightning and the failure of vegetables and fruits, and as even sometimes falling to the earth, whereby many men die." [321] So, in Africa, the emotions of the worshippers vary with their subjective views of their god. "Negro tribes seem almost universally to greet the new moon, whether in delight or disgust. The Guinea people fling themselves about with droll gestures, and pretend to throw firebrands at it; the Ashango men behold it with superstitious fear; the Fetu negroes jumped thrice into the air with hands together and gave thanks." [322] But even amongst men who neither personify nor deify the moon, its dominion over the air, earth, and sea, over human health and happiness, is held to be so all-important, that if the Maker and Monarch of all were jealous, as men count jealousy, such lunar fears and affections would be unpardonable sin.

Let us proceed to particulars, rising from inorganic nature to beings endowed with the highest instruments of life. Even the mineral kingdom is supposed to be swayed by the moon; for in Scotland, Martin says, "The natives told me, that the rock on the east side of Harries, in the Sound of Island Glass, hath a vacuity near the front, on the north-west side of the Sound; in which they say there is a stone that they call the Lunar Stone, which advances and retires according to the increase and decrease of the moon." [323] An ancient instance of belief in lunar influence upon inanimate matter is cited by Plutarch. "Euthydemus of Sunium feasted us upon a time at his house, and set before us a wilde bore, of such bignesse, that all wee at the table wondred thereat; but he told us that there was another brought unto him farre greater; mary naught it was, and corrupted in the carriage, by the beames of the moone-shine; whereof he made great doubt and question, how it should come to passe; for that he could not conceive, nor see any reason, but that the sunne should rather corrupt flesh, being as it was, farre hotter than the moone." [324] Pliny said that the moon corrupted carcases of animals exposed to its malefic rays. As with the lifeless, so with the living. "The inhabitants of St. Kilda observe that when the April moon goes far in May, the fowls are ten or twelve days later in laying their eggs than ordinarily they use to be." [325] The influence of the moon upon vegetation is an opinion hoary with age. In the Zend-Avesta we read, "And when the light of the moon waxes warmer, golden-hued plants grow on from the earth during the spring." [326] An old English author writes:—

"Sowe peason and beanes, in the wane of the moone, Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soone That they with the planet may rest and arise, And flourish, with bearing most plentiful wise." [327]

Cucumbers, radishes, turnips, leeks, lilies, horseradish, saffron, and other plants, are said to increase during the fulness of the moon; but onions, on the contrary, are much larger and are better nourished during the decline. [328] To recur to Plutarch is to find him saying: "The moone showeth her power most evidently even in those bodies, which have neither sense nor lively breath; for carpenters reject the timber of trees fallen in the ful-moone, as being soft and tender, subject also to the worme and putrifaction, and that quickly, by reason of excessive moisture; husbandmen, likewise, make haste to gather up their wheat and other grain from the threshing-floore, in the wane of the moone, and toward the end of the month, that being hardened thus with drinesse, the heape in the garner may keepe the better from being fustie, and continue the longer; whereas corne which is inned and laied up at the full of the moone, by reason of the softnesse and over-much moisture, of all other, doth most cracke and burst. It is commonly said also, that if a leaven be laied in the ful-moone, the paste will rise and take leaven better." [329] Still in Cornwall the people gather all their medicinal plants when the moon is of a certain age; which practice is very probably a relic of druidical superstition. "In some parts it is a prevalent belief that the growth of mushrooms is influenced by the changes of the moon, and in Essex the subjoined rule is often scrupulously adhered to:—

"When the moon is at the full, Mushrooms you may freely pull But when the moon is on the wane, Wait ere you think to pluck again.'" [330]

Henderson says, "I may, perhaps, mention here, that apples are said to 'shrump up' in Devonshire if picked when the moon is waning." [331] A writer of miscellaneous literature tells us that "it has been demonstrated that moonlight has the power, per se, of awakening the sensitive plant, and consequently that it possesses an influence of some kind on vegetation. It is true that the influence is very feeble, compared with that of the sun; but the action is established, and the question remains, what is the practical value of the fact? 'It will immediately,' says Professor Lindley, 'occur to the reader that possibly the screens which are drawn down over hothouses at night, to prevent loss of heat by radiation, may produce some unappreciated injury by cutting off the rays of the moon, which nature intended to fall upon plants as much as the rays of the sun." [332] The same author says elsewhere, "Columella, Cato, Vitruvius, and Pliny, all had their notions of the advantages of cutting timber at certain ages of the moon; a piece of mummery which is still preserved in the royal ordonnances of France to the conservators of the forests, who are directed to fell oaks only 'in the wane of the moon' and 'when the wind is at north.'" [333] Of trees, astrologers affirm that the moon rules the palm tree (which the ancients say "sends forth a twig every time the moon rises") and all plants, trees, and herbs that are juicy and full of sap. [334]

"A description of the New Netherlands, written about 1650, remarks that the savages of that land 'ascribe great influence to the moon over crops.' This venerable superstition, common to all races, still lingers among our own farmers, many of whom continue to observe 'the signs of the moon' in sowing grain, setting out trees, cutting timber, and other rural avocations." [335] What is here said of the new world applies also to the old; for in England a current expression in Huntingdonshire is "a dark Christmas sends a fine harvest": dark meaning moonless.

Of the lunar influence upon the tides, old John Lilly writes: "There is nothing thought more admirable, or commendable in the sea, than the ebbing and flowing; and shall the moone, from whom the sea taketh this virtue, be accounted fickle for encreasing and decreasing?" [336] Another writer of the sixteenth century says, "The moone is founde, by plaine experience, to beare her greatest stroke uppon the seas, likewise in all things that are moiste, and by consequence in the braines of man." [337] Dennys tells us that "the influence exerted by the moon on tides is recognised by the Chinese." [338] What some record in prose, others repeat in rhyme. The following is one kind of poetry.

"Moone changed, keepes closet, three daies as a Queene, Er she in hir prime, will of any be scene: If great she appereth, it showreth out, If small she appereth, it signifieth drout. At change or at full, come it late, or else soone, Maine sea is at highest, at midnight and noone, But yet in the creekes, it is later high flood: Through farnesse of running, by reason as good." [339]

Indirectly, through the influence upon the tides, the moon is concerned in human mortality.

"Tyde flowing is feared, for many a thing, Great danger to such as be sick it doth bring. Sea eb, by long ebbing, some respit doth give, And sendeth good comfort, to such as shal live." [340]

Henderson says, "It is a common belief along the east coast of England, from Northumberland to Kent, that deaths mostly occur during the falling of the tide." [341] Every reader of the inimitable Dickens will be reminded here of the death of poor old Barkis.

"'He's a-going out with the tide,' said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind his hand.

"My eyes were dim, and so were Mr. Peggotty's; but I repeated in a whisper, 'With the tide?'

"'People can't die, along the coast,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in-not properly born, till flood. He's a-going out with the tide. It's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide.'

"'He's coming to himself,' said Peggotty.

"Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence, 'They are both a-going out fast.'

"He now opened his eyes.

"I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to stretch out his arm, and said to me distinctly, with a pleasant smile,—

"'Barkis is willin'.'

"And, it being low water, he went out with the tide." [342]

That the rise and fall of our tides twice a day, with spring and neap tides twice in the lunar month, are the effect of the combined action of the sun and moon, is never called in question. The water under the moon is drawn up from the earth, and the earth is drawn from the water on the opposite side, the consequence of which is two high tides in the two hemispheres at the same hour. The rotation of the earth bringing the same point of the ocean twice under the moon's meridian, once under the upper meridian and once under the lower, each hemisphere has two high tides in the course of the day. The spring tide is caused by the attractive force of the sun and moon acting in conjunction, or in a straight line; and the neap tide is caused by the moon being in quadrature, or when the sun and moon are at right angles to each other. They counteract each other's influence, and our tides arc therefore low. So much is science; but the connection of ebb and flow with life and death is superstition.

From a very remote antiquity, in the twilight of natural astrology, a belief arose that changes in the weather were occasioned by the moon. [343] That the notion lives on, and will not soon die, is clear to any one who is conversant with current literature and common folk-lore. Even intelligent, well-informed people lend it countenance. Professor Newcomb, of Washington, rightly says: "Thus far there is no evidence that the moon directly affects the earth or its inhabitants in any other way than by her attraction, which is so minute as to be entirely insensible except in the ways we have described. A striking illustration of the fallibility of the human judgment when not disciplined by scientific training is afforded by the opinions which have at various times obtained currency respecting a supposed influence of the moon on the weather. Neither in the reason of the case nor in observations do we find any real support for such a theory. It must, however, be admitted that opinions of this character are not confined to the uneducated." [344] Mr. Edward B. Tylor holds similar language: "The notion that the weather changes with the moon's quarterings is still held with great vigour in England. That educated people to whom exact weather records are accessible should still find satisfaction in the fanciful lunar rule, is an interesting case of intellectual survival." [345] No marvel that the "heathen Chinee" considers lunar observations as forecasting scarcity of provisions he is but of the same blood with his British brother, who takes his tea and sends him opium. "The Hakkas (and also many Puntis) believe that if in the night of the fifteenth day of the eighth month (mid autumn) there are clouds obscuring the moon before midnight, it is a sign that oil and salt will become very dear. If, however, there are clouds obscuring the moon after midnight, the price of rice will, it is supposed, undergo a similar change." [346]

One of our provincial proverbs is: "So many days old the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods after." Sometimes a proverb is a short saying spoken after long experience; at other times it is a small crystal left after a lengthy evaporation. In certain instances our rural apothegms are sacred relics of extinct but canonized fictions. An equally wise prediction is that if Christmas comes during a waxing moon we shall have a very good year; and the nearer to the new moon, the better. But if during a waning moon, a hard year; and the nearer the end of the moon, so much the worse. Another sage belief is that the condition of the weather is dependent upon the day of the week upon which the new moon chances to fall. We are told that "Dr. Forster, of Bruges, well known as a meteorologist, declares that by the Journal kept by his grandfather, father, and self, ever since 1767, to the present time, whenever the new moon has fallen on a Saturday, the following twenty days have been wet and windy, in nineteen cases out of twenty." [347] In Italy it is said, "If the moon change on a Sunday, there will be a flood before the month is out." New moon on Monday, or moon-day, is, of course, everywhere held a sign of good weather and luck.

That a misty moon is a misfortune to the atmosphere is widely supposed. In Scotland it is an agricultural maxim among the canny farmers that—

"If the moon shows like a silver shield, You need not be afraid to reap your field But if she rises haloed round, Soon we'll tread on deluged ground." [348]

Others say that a mist is unfavourable only with the new moon, not with the old.

"An old moon in a mist Is worth gold in a kist (chest) But a new moon's mist Will never lack thirst," [349]

is a rugged rhyme found in several places. In Cornwall the idea is that—

"A fog and a small moon Bring an easterly wind soon."

The east wind, as we know, is dry. Two of the Shepherd of Banbury's rules are:

"xii. If mists in the new moon, rain in the old. xiii. If mists in the old, rain in the new moon." [350]

One thing is a meteorological certainty: the full moon very frequently clears the sky. But this may be partly accounted for by the fact that a full moon shows the night to be clear, which in the moon's absence might be called cloudy.

Another observation shows that in proportion to the clearness of the night is its cold. The clouds covering the earth with no thick blanket, it radiates its heat into space. This has given rise to the notion that the moon itself reduces our temperature. It is cold at night without doubt. But the cold moon is so warm when the sun is shining full on its disk that no creature on earth could endure a moment's contact with its surface. The centre of the "pale-faced moon" is hotter than boiling water. This thought may cheer us when "the cold round moon shines deeply down." We may be pardoned if we take with a tincture of scepticism the following statement "Native Chinese records aver that on the 18th day of the 6th moon, 1590, snow fell one summer night from the midst of the moon. The flakes were like fine willow flowers on shreds of silk." [351] Instead of cold, it is more likely that the white moon gives us heat, for from Melloni's letter to Arago it seems to be already an ascertained fact. Having concentrated the lunar rays with a lens of over three feet diameter upon his thermoscopic pile, Melloni found that the needle had deviated from 0 deg. 6' to 4 deg. 8', according to the lunar phase. Other thermoscopes may give even larger indications; but meanwhile the Italian physicist has exploded an error with a spark of science.

"Another weather guide connected with the moon is, that to see 'the old moon in the arms of the new one' is reckoned a sign of fine weather; and so is the turning up of the horns of the new moon. In this position it is supposed to retain the water, which is imagined to be in it, and which would run out if the horns were turned down." [352] On this novel idea of a lunar bason or saucer, Southey writes from "Keswick, December 29th, 1828," as follows:—"Poor Littledale has this day explained the cause of our late rains, which have prevailed for the last six weeks, by a theory which will probably be as new to you as it is to me. 'I have observed,' he says, 'that, when the moon is turned upward, we have fine weather after it; but if it is turned down, then we have a wet season; and the reason I think is, that when it is turned down, it holds no water, like a bason, you know, and then down it all comes.' There, it will be a long while before the march of intellect shall produce a theory as original as this, which I find, upon inquiry, to be the popular opinion here." [353] George Eliot has taken notice of this fancy in the burial of "poor old Thias Bede." "They'll ha' putten Thias Bede i' the ground afore ye get to the churchyard," said old Martin, as his son came up. "It 'ud ha' been better luck if they'd ha' buried him i' the forenoon when the rain was fallin'; there's no likelihoods of a drop now, an' the moon lies like a boat there, dost see? That's a sure sign o' fair weather; there's a many as is false, but that's sure." [354]

In Dekker's Match Me in London, Act i., the King says, "My Lord, doe you see this change in the moone? Sharp hornes doe threaten windy weather."

In the famous ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, concerning whose origin there has been so much discussion, without eliciting any very accurate information, we read:

"O ever alack! my master dear, I fear a deadly storm. I saw the new moon late yestreen, Wi' the auld moon in her arm And if ye gang to sea, maister, I fear we'll suffer harm." [355]

Jamieson informs us that "prognostications concerning the weather, during the course of the month, are generally formed by the country people in Scotland from the appearance of the new moon. It is considered as an almost infallible presage of bad weather, if she lies sair on her back, or when her horns are pointed towards the zenith. It is a similar prognostic, when the new moon appears wi' the auld moon in her arm, or, in other words, when that part of the moon which is covered with the shadow of the earth is seen through it." [356] The last sentence is a lapsus calami. Dr. Jamieson should have said, when that part of the moon which is turned from the sun is dimly visible through the reflected light of the earth.

"At Whitby, when the moon is surrounded by a halo with watery clouds, the seamen say that there will be a change of weather, for the 'moon dogs' are about." [357] At Ulceby, in Lincolnshire, "there is a very prevalent belief amongst sailors and seafaring men that when a large star or planet is seen near the moon, or, as they express it, 'a big star is dogging the moon,' that this is a certain prognostication of wild weather. I have met old sailors having the strongest faith in this prediction, and who have told me that they have verified it by a long course of observation." [358]

"Some years ago," says a writer from Torquay, "an old fisherman of this place told me, on the morning next after a violent gale, that he had foreseen the storm for some time, as he had observed one star ahead of the moon, towing her, and another astern, chasing her. 'I know'd 'twas coming, safe enough.'" [359] The moon was simply in apparent proximity to two stars; but the old Devonian descried mischief.

The following incident from Zulu life will be of interest. "1878. A curious phenomenon occurred 7th January. A bright star appeared near the moon at noonday, the sun shining brightly. Omen—The natives from this foretold the coming war with the Amazulu. Intense heat and drought prevailed at this time." [360]

Hitherto we have reviewed only the imaginary influences of the moon over inanimate nature and what are called irrational beings. We have seen that this potent orb is supposed to affect the lightning and thunder of the air; the rocks and seas, the vegetables and animals of the earth; and generally to govern terrestrial matters in a manner altogether its own. Furthermore, we have found these imaginations rooted in all lands, and among men whose culture might have been expected to refuse such fruitless excrescences. When classical authors counsel us to set eggs under the hen at new moon, and to root up trees only when the moon is waning and after mid-day; and when "the wisest, brightest," if not the "meanest of mankind" seriously attributes to the moon the extraction of heat, the furtherance of putrification, the increase of moisture, and the excitement of animal spirits, with the increase of hedges and herbs if cut or set during certain phases of that body, we can but repeat to ourselves the saying, "The best of men are but men at the best." The half, however, has not been told; and we must now pass on to speak of lunar influences upon the birth, health, intellect, and fortune of microcosmical man.

In the system of astrology, which professed to interpret the events of human existence by the movements of the stars, the moon was one of the primary planets. As man was looked upon in the light of a microcosm, or world in miniature, so the several parts of his constitution were viewed as but a reproduction in brief of the great parts of the vast organism. Creation was a living, intelligent being, whose two eyes were the sun and the moon, whose body was the earth, whose intellect was the ether, whose wings were the heavens. Man was an epitome of all this; and as the functions of the less were held to correspond with the functions of the greater, the microcosm with the macrocosm, man's movements could be inferred by first ascertaining the motions of the universe. The moon, having dominion in the twelve "houses" of heaven, through which she passed in the course of the year, her aspects to the other bodies were considered as of prime significance, in indicating benignant or malignant influences upon human life. This system, which was based upon ignorance and superstition, and upheld by arbitrary rules and unreasoning credulity, is so repugnant to all principles of science and common sense, that it would be unworthy of notice, if we did not know that to this day there are educated persons still to be seen poring over old almanacs and peering into the darkness of divination, to read their own fortune or that of their children by the dim light of some lucky or unlucky configuration of the planets with the moon. The wheel of fortune yet revolves, and the despotism of astrology is not dead. The lunar influence is considered supreme in the hour of birth. Nay, with some the moon is potential even before birth. In Iceland it is said: "If a pregnant woman sit with her face turned towards the moon, her child will be a lunatic." [361] And this imagination obtains at home as well as abroad. We are told that "astrologers ascribe the most powerful influence to the moon on every person, both for success and health, according to her zodiacal and mundane position at birth, and her aspects to other planets. The sensual faculties depend almost entirely on the moon, and as she is aspected so are the moral or immoral tendencies. She has great influence always upon every person's constitution." [362] This is the doctrine of a book published not thirty years ago. Another work, issued also in London, says, "Cynthia, 'the queen of heaven,' as the ancients termed her, or the MOON, the companion of the earth, and chief source of our evening light, is a cold, moist, watery, phlegmatic planet, variable to an extreme, in astrological science; and partaking of good or evil, as she is aspected by good or evil stars. When angular and unafflicted in a nativity, she is the promissory pledge of great success in life and continual good fortune. She produces a full stature, fair, pale complexion, round face, gray eyes, short arms, thick hands and feet, smooth, corpulent, and phlegmatic body. Blemishes in the eyes, or a peculiar weakness in the sight, is the result of her being afflicted by the Sun. Her conjunction, semi-sextile, sextile, or trine, to Jupiter, is exceeding fortunate; and she is said by the old Astrologers to govern the brain, stomach, bowels, left eye of the male, and right eye of the female. Her usual diseases are rheumatism, consumption, palsy, cholic, apoplexy, vertigo, lunacy, scrophula, smallpox, dropsy, etc.; also most diseases peculiar to young children." [363] Such teaching is not a whit in advance of Plutarch's odd dictum that the moon has a "special hand in the birth of children."

If this belief have disciples in London, it is not by any means confined to that city. In Sweden great influence is ascribed to the moon, not only in regulating the weather, but as affecting all the affairs of man's daily life. The lower orders, and many of the better sort, will not fell a tree for agricultural purposes in the wane of that orb, lest it should shrink and decay; nor will the housewife then slaughter for her family, lest the meat should shrivel and melt away in the pot. The moon is the domestic deity, whom the household must fear: the Fortuna who presides over the daily doings of sublunary mortals. In the matter of birth, we find Francis Bacon affirming that "the calculation of nativities, fortunes, good or bad hours of business, and the like fatalities, are mere levities that have little in them of certainty and solidity, and may be plainly confuted by physical reasons"; [364] and yet in his Natural History he writes: "It may be that children and young cattle that are brought forth in the full of the moon, are stronger and larger than those that are brought forth in the wane." [365] There surely can be no superstition in studying the moon's conjunctions and oppositions if her influence in a nativity have the slightest weight. And this influence is still widely maintained by philosophers who read Bacon, as well as by the peasants who read nothing at all. "In Cornwall, when a child is born in the interval between an old moon and the first appearance of a new one, it is said that it will never live to reach the age of puberty. Hence the saying, 'no moon, no man.' In the same county, too, when a boy is born in the wane of the moon, it is believed that the next birth will be a girl, and vice versa; and it is also commonly said that when a birth takes place on the 'growing of the moon' the next child will be of the same sex." [366]