Others say

he is said to turn round once. 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".

The Dutch household myth is, that the unhappy man was caught stealing vegetables. Dante calls him Cain:

"... Now doth Cain with fork of thorns confine,

On either hemisphere, touching the wave

Beneath the towers of Seville. Yesternight

The moon was round."-Hell, cant. xx.

Thorpe's "Mythology and Popular Traditions,” vol. iii.

And again,

“... Tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots
Upon this body, which below on earth

Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?"

Paradise, cant. ii.

Chaucer, in the "Testament of Cresside," adverts to the man in the moon, and attributes to him the same idea of theft. Of Lady Cynthia, or the moon, he says:

"Her gite was gray and full of spottis blake,

And on her brest a chorle painted ful even,

Bering a bush of thornis on his backe,

Whiche for his theft might clime so ner the heaven."

Ritson, among his "Ancient Songs," gives one extracted from a manuscript attributed by Mr. Wright to the period of Edward I., on the Man in the Moon; but in very obscure language. The first verse, altered into more modern orthography, runs as follows:

"Man in the Moon stand and stit,

On his bot-fork his burden he beareth,

It is much wonder that he do na doun slit,

For doubt lest he fall he shudd'reth and shivereth.

"When the frost freezes must chill he bide,

The thorns be keen his attire so teareth,

Nis no wight in the world there wot when he syt,
Ne bote it by the hedge what weeds he weareth."

Alexander Necham, or Nequam, a writer of the twelfth century, in commenting on the dispersed shadows in the moon, thus alludes to the vulgar belief:-"Nonne novisti quid vulgus vocet rusticum in luna portantem spinas? Unde quidam vulgariter loquens ait:

"Rusticus in Luna,

Quem sarcina deprimit una
Monstrat per opinas

Nulli prodesse rapinas","

which may be translated thus: "Do you know what they call the rustic in the moon, who carries the faggot of sticks? So that one vulgarly speaking says:

"See the rustic in the Moon,

How his bundle weighs him down ;
Thus his sticks the truth reveal
It never profits man to steal."

Shakspeare refers to the same individual in his "Midsummer Night's Dream." Quince the carpenter, giving directions for the performance of the play of "Pyramus and Thisbe," orders: "One must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say he comes in to disfigure, or to present, the person of Moonshine." And the enacter of this part says, "All I have to say is, to tell you that the

• Alex. Neckam, De Naturis Rerum. Ed. Wright, p. xviii.

lantern is the moon; I the man in the moon ;

this

thorn-bush my thorn-bush; and this dog my dog.' Also "Tempest," Act 2, Scene 2:—

"Cal. Hast thou not dropt from heav'n?

66

Steph. Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee. I was the man in th' moon when time was.

"Cal. I have seen thee in her; and I do adore thee. My mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog, and thy bush."

The dog I have myself had pointed out to me by an old Devonshire crone. If popular superstition places a dog in the moon, it puts a lamb in the sun; for in the same county it is said that those who see the sun rise on Easter-day may behold in the orb the lamb and flag.

I believe this idea of locating animals in the two great luminaries of heaven to be very ancient, and to be a relic of a primeval superstition of the Aryan

race.

There is an ancient pictorial representation of our friend the Sabbath-breaker in Gyffyn Church, near Conway. The roof of the chancel is divided into compartments, in four of which are the Evangelistic symbols, rudely, yet effectively painted. Besides these symbols is delineated in each compartment an orb of heaven. The sun, the moon, and two stars, are placed at the feet of the Angel,

the Bull, the Lion, and the Eagle. The representation of the moon is as below; in the disk is the

conventional man with his bundle of sticks, but without the dog. There is also a curious seal appended to a deed preserved in the Record Office,