Chapter 12
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]