orb,

"All roundabout environed
With fire she is illumined:
And in the middes there doth appeere,
Like to some boy, a visage cleere;
Whose eies to us doe seem in view,
Of colour grayish more than blew:
The browes and forehead tender seeme,
The cheeks all reddish one would deeme." [15]

The story of the man in the moon as told in our British nurseries is supposed to be founded on Biblical fact. But though the Jews have a Talmudic tradition that Jacob is in the moon, and though they believe that his face is plainly visible, the Hebrew Scriptures make no mention of the myth. Yet to our fireside auditors it is related that a man was found by Moses gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and that for this crime he was transferred to the moon, there to remain till the end of all things. The passage cited in support of this tale is Numbers xv. 32-36. Upon referring to the sacred text, we certainly find a man gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day, and the congregation gathering stones for his merciless punishment, but we look in vain for any mention of the moon. Non est inventus. Of many an ancient story-teller we may say, as Sheridan said of Dundas, "the right honourable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts."

Mr. Proctor reminds us that "according to German nurses, the day was not the Sabbath, but Sunday. Their tale runs as follows: Ages ago there went one Sunday an old man into the woods 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 burthen. On his way he met a handsome man in Sunday suit, walking towards the church. The man stopped, and asked the faggot-bearer, 'Do you know that this is Sunday on earth, when all must rest from their labours?' 'Sunday on earth, or Monday in heaven, it's all one to me!' laughed the woodcutter. 'Then bear your bundle for ever!' answered the stranger. 'And as you value not Sunday on earth, yours shall

be a perpetual moon-day in heaven; 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 staff and faggot into the moon, where he stands yet." [16]

In Tobler's account the man was given the choice of burning in the sun, or of freezing in the moon; and preferring a lunar frost to a solar furnace, he is to be seen at full moon seated with his bundle of sticks on his back. If "the cold in clime are cold in blood," we may be thankful that we do not hibernate eternally in the moon and in the nights of winter, when the cold north winds blow," we may look up through the casement and "pity the sorrows of this poor old man."

Mr. Baring-Gould finds that "in Schaumberg-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 mannikin who stole wood'; and Praetorius, 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.'" [17]

The North Frisians, among the most ancient and pure of all the German tribes, tell the tale differently. "At the time when wishing was of avail, 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 (wished) him up in the moon. There he stands in the full moon, to be seen by everybody, bearing his load of cabbages to all eternity. Every Christmas Eve he is said to turn round once. Others say that he stole willow-boughs, which he must bear for ever. In Sylt the story goes that he was a sheep-stealer, that 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 cabbages. 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 the flow; but at the time of the ebb he stands erect and rests from his labour, when the water can subside again." [18]

Crossing the sea into Scandinavia, we obtain some valuable information. First, we find that in the old Norse, or language of the ancient Scandinavians, the sun is always feminine, and the moon masculine. In the Völu-Spá, a grand, prophetic poem, it is written--

"But the sun had not yet learned to trace
The path that conducts to her dwelling-place
To the moon arrived was not the hour
When he should exert his mystic power
Nor to the stars was the knowledge given,
To marshal their ranks o'er the fields of heaven." [19]

We also learn that "the moon and the sun are brother and sister; they are the children of Mundilföri, who, on account of their beauty, called his son Mâni, and his daughter Sôl." Here again we observe that the moon is masculine. "Mâni directs the course of the moon, and regulates Nyi (the new moon) and Nithi (the waning moon). He once took up two children from the earth, Bil and Hiuki, as they were going from the well of Byrgir, bearing on their shoulders the bucket Soeg, and the pole Simul." [20] These two children, with their pole and bucket, were placed in the moon, "where they could be seen from earth"; which phrase must refer to the lunar spots. Thorpe, speaking of the allusion in the Edda to these spots, says that they "require but little illustration. Here they are children carrying water in a bucket, a superstition still preserved in the popular belief of the Swedes." [21] We are all reminded at once of the nursery rhyme--

"Jack and Jill went up the hill,
     To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
     And Jill came tumbling after."

Little have we thought, when rehearsing this jingle in our juvenile hours, that we should some day discover its roots in one of the oldest mythologies of the world. But such is the case. Mr. Baring-Gould has evolved the argument in a manner which, if not absolutely conclusive in each point, is extremely cogent and clear. "This verse, which to us seems at first sight nonsense, I have no hesitation in saying has a high antiquity, and refers to the Eddaic Hjuki and Bil. The names indicate as much. Hjuki, in Norse, would be pronounced Juki,