V. THE TOAD IN THE MOON.
We owe an immense debt of gratitude and honour to the many enterprising and cultivated men who have gone into all parts of the earth and among all peoples to investigate human history and habit, mythology and religion, and thus enrich the stores of our national literature. With such a host of travellers gathering up the fragments, nothing of value is likely to be lost. We have to thank intelligent explorers for all we know of the mythical frog or toad in the moon: an addition to our information which is not unworthy of thoughtful notice.
The Selish race of North-west American Indians, who inhabit the country between the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, have a tradition, which Captain Wilson relates as follows: "The expression of 'a toad in the moon,' equivalent to our 'man in the moon,' is explained by a very pretty story relating how the little wolf, being desperately in love with the toad, went a-wooing one night and prayed that the moon might shine brightly on his adventure; his prayer was granted, and by the clear light of a full moon he was pursuing the toad, and had nearly caught her, when, as a last chance of escape, she made a desperate spring on to the face of the moon, where she remains to this day." [91] Another writer says that "the Cowichan tribes think that the moon has a frog in it." [92]
From the Great Western we turn to the Great Eastern world, and in China find the frog in the moon. "The famous astronomer Chang Hêng was avowedly a disciple of Indian teachers. The statement given by Chang Hêng is to the effect that 'How I, the fabled inventor of arrows in the days of Yao and Shun,[*] obtained the drug of immortality from Si Wang Mu (the fairy 'Royal Mother' of the West); and Chang Ngo (his wife) having stolen it, fled to the moon, and became the frog--Chang-chu--which is seen there.' The lady Chang-ngo is still pointed out among the shadows in the surface of the Moon." [93] Dr. Wells Williams also tells us that in China "the sun is symbolized by the figure of a raven in a circle, and the moon by a rabbit on his hind legs pounding rice in a mortar, or by a three-legged toad. The last refers to the legend of an ancient beauty, Chang-ngo, who drank the liquor of immortality, and straightway ascended to the moon, where she was transformed into a toad, still to be traced in its face. It is a special object of worship in autumn, and moon cakes dedicated to it are sold at this season." [94] We have little doubt that what the Chinese look for they see. We in the West characterize and colour objects which we behold, as we see them through the painted windows of our predisposition or prejudice. As a great novelist writes: "From the same object different conclusions are drawn; the most common externals of nature, the wind and the wave, the stars and the heavens, the very earth on which we tread, never excite in different bosoms the same ideas; and it is from our own hearts, and not from an outward source, that we draw the hues which colour the web of our existence. It is true, answered Clarence. You remember that in two specks of the moon the enamoured maiden perceived two unfortunate lovers, while the ambitious curate conjectured that they were the spires of a cathedral." [95] Besides, it must be confessed that the particular moon-patch that has awakened so much interest in every age and nation is quite as much like a frog or toad as it is like a rabbit or hare.
[*] Mr. Herbert A. Giles says that How I was a legendary chieftain, who "flourished about 2,500 B.C." Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, London, 1880, i. 19, note.
VI. OTHER MOON MYTHS.
It is almost time that we should leave this lunar zoology; we will therefore merely present a few creatures which may be of service in a comparative anatomy of the whole subject, and then close the account. There is a story told in the Fiji Islands which so nearly approaches the Hottentot legend of the hare, that they both seem but variations of a common original. In the one case the opponent of the moon's benevolent purpose affecting man's hereafter was a hare, in the other a rat. The story thus runs: There was "a contest between two gods as to how man should die. Ra Vula (the moon) contended that man should be like himself--disappear awhile, and then live again. Ra Kalavo (the rat) would not listen to this kind proposal, but said, 'Let man die as a rat dies.' And he prevailed." [96] Mr. Tylor, who quotes this rat story, adds: "The dates of the versions seem to show that the presence of these myths among the Hottentots and Fijians, at the two opposite sides of the globe, is at any rate not due to transmission in modern times." [97]
From the rat to one of its mortal enemies is an easy transition. The Australian story is that Mityan, the moon, was a native cat, who fell in love with another's wife, and while trying to induce her to run away with him, was discovered by the husband, when a fight took place. Mityan was beaten and ran away, and has been wandering ever since. [98] We are indebted for another suggestion to Bishop Wilkins, who wrote over two centuries ago: "As for the form of those spots, Albertus thinks that it represents a lion, with his tail towards the east, and his head the west; and some others have thought it to be very much like a fox, and certainly 'tis as much like a lion as that in the zodiac, or as ursa major is like a bear." [99] This last remark of the old mathematician is "a hit, a very palpable hit," at those unpoetical people who catalogue the constellations under all sorts of living creatures' names, implying resemblances, and then "sap with solemn sneer" our myths of the moon.