'The cat laps the moonbeams in the bowl of water, thinking them to be milk; the elephant thinks that the moonbeams threaded through the intervals of the trees are the fibres of the lotus-stalk; the woman snatches at the moonbeams as they lie on the bed, taking them for her muslin garment. Oh, how the moon, intoxicated with radiance, bewilders all the world!'
Again:
'The bewildered herdsmen place the pails under the cows, thinking that the milk is flowing; the maidens also put the blue lotus-blossom in their ears, thinking that it is the white; the mountaineer's wife snatches up the jujube fruit, avaricious for pearls. Whose mind is not led astray by the thickly-clustering moonbeams?'
Such was the 'glamour' of Glam (the moon) in ancient eyes, and still it works on lovers' hearts. The fascination has been felt and expressed by nearly all the poets, and by none better, perhaps, than by Sir Philip Sidney:
'With what sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrow tries?
Sure if that long with love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case.
I read it in thy looks—thy languish'd grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.'
The number of human beings who have, articulately or inarticulately, cried with Endymion, 'What is there in thee, Moon, that thou should'st move my heart so potently?' are not to be measured in ordinary figures.
To return, however, to the bad side of Luna's character. We read that in Assyria deadly influences were ascribed to the moon. In Vedic mythology there is a story, which Mr. Moncure Conway tells in Demonology and Devil-lore, of a quarrel between Brahma and Vishnu as to which was the first born. Siva interferes, and says he is the first born, but will recognise as his superior whoever is able to see the crown of his head or the soles of his feet. Vishnu thereupon transforms himself into a boar, pierces underground, and thus sees the feet of Siva, who salutes him on his return as the firstborn of the gods. Now, De Gubernatis regards this fable as 'making the boar emblem of the hidden moon'; and Mr. Conway thinks there is no doubt that the boar at an early period became emblematic of the wild forces of Nature. 'From being hunted by King Odin on earth, it passed to be his favourite food in Valhalla, and a prominent figure in his spectral hunt.' But it is with the moon, not with Odin, that we are at present concerned, and so note two curious items mentioned by Conway. In Sicilian legend, he says, 'Zafarana, by throwing three hog's bristles on embers, renews her husband's youth'; and in Esthonian legend, a prince, by eating pork, acquires the faculty of understanding the language of birds. All this opens up a very suggestive field of inquiry. Thus, Plutarch says that the reason why the Jews would not eat swine's flesh was because Adonis was slain by a boar, and Bacchus and Adonis, he says, were the same divinities. Now, if we turn to Herodotus, we find that wonderful narrator saying: 'The only deities to whom the Egyptians offer swine are Bacchus and Luna; to these they sacrifice swine when the moon is full, after which they eat the flesh,' which at other times they disdained. The meaning of these sacrifices is understood by those interested, and I do not propose to go further into the matter. All I wish to do is to point out the curious involvements, among so many nations, of the moon and the boar.
May we not even trace a connection with the superstition current in Suffolk, according to 'C. W. J.,' in The Book of Days? 'C. W. J.' says that in his part of the world it is considered unlucky to kill a pig when the moon is on the wane; and if it is done, the pork will waste in boiling. 'I have known,' he says, 'the shrinking of bacon in the pot attributed to the fact of the pig having been killed in the moon's decrease; and I have also known the death of poor piggy delayed or hastened so as to happen during its increase.' Truly the old superstitions die hard!
The moon's supposed influence on the weather is a matter of general knowledge. The writer last quoted mentions it as a very prevalent belief that the general condition of the atmosphere throughout the world, during any lunation, depends on whether the moon changed before or after midnight. Another superstition is, that if the new moon happens on a Saturday the weather will be bad during the month. On the other hand, in Suffolk the old moon in the arms of the new one is accounted a sign of fine weather; contrary to the belief in Scotland, where, it may be remembered, in the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, it is taken as a presage of storm and disaster.
Shakespeare has many allusions to the moon's influence on the weather, as: 'The moon, the governess of floods, pale in her anger, washes the air'; 'The moon, one thinks, looks with a watery eye; and when she weeps, weeps every little flower'; 'Upon the corner of the moon there hangs a vaporous drop profound'; and so forth. Then we have the old proverb: 'So many days old the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods after.' Other beliefs are mentioned by Mr. Harley, such as, that if Christmas comes during a waning moon, we shall have a good year, and the converse; that new moon on Monday is a certain sign of good weather; that a misty moon indicates heavy rain; that the horns of the moon turned upward predict a good, and turned downward a bad, season; that a large star near the moon is a certain prognostication of storm.