MOON MYTHOLOGY

"This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."

-Sylvia Plath
The Moon and the Yew Tree

The urge to explain and understand the world of natural phenomena cannot properly be seen as
particularly scientific, but must be seen, rather, as generally human. It is well known that long
before Copernicus described his radical and revolutionary picture of a helio-centric universe that
human beings, from around the world, were giving form to the origins, motions and motives of the
vastly complex and depthless sky above them. Through mythic narratives of super-human heroes
and anthropomorphic goddesses and gods, pre-scientific societies placed order among the cosmos.
The Moon has always held a place of particular fascination in our earthbound lives, provoking the
imagination to escape its limits and, as we look outwards, moving us towards an understanding of
our inner selves, in all our human complexity. Monuments and shrines have been built to her;
calendars follow her motion; ancient Gods and Goddesses mimic the Moon's gentle and unending
pull on the forces of life. Myths, as Carl Jung has described, bring us back in touch with ourselves
and, to that effect, can never be replaced by science. In this sense, it would be detrimental to
completely dissolve these mythic narratives into an archaic and unsophisticated past.
Is it not possible, on one hand, to deny the factual accuracy of these stories while, on the other,
appreciating their import in our socio-political world, to see them as "facts of the mind," which,
when projected, take on a worthwhile reality unto themselves; to understand them, not as the
antitheses of science but, instead, its antecedents; to understand, not only their dangers, but
also their power to free the human imagination, enabling us to envision new worlds, overcome old
boundaries, and eventually move us all forward to a better understanding of ourselves and the
universe around us.

Stories and Myths

Scandinavia

"The Wolves of Ironwood"

Native American

Pawnee

"Wolf Spirit"

Inuits
 "An Arctic Sea Demon"
"A Lesson of Darkness"

Blackfeet

"The Adulterous Moon"

Navajo

"Changing Woman"

Ancient Greece

"Monsters of the Sicilian Sea"

"The Barely Mother"

Ancient Rome

"Fana, the Chaste Maid"

"Dianaâs Moon Children"

Chukchi (Siberia)

"The Reindeer Maid"

Pacific Islands

"The seeds of the Aoa"

China

"Chinese Seed-Birds"
"Moon Toads"

India

"A Hare in the Moon"

"The Blood of Creation"
"The Lake of the Moon"

Hottentot (South Africa)

"The origin of the Harelip"

Lithuania

"The Parting of the Sun and Moon"

Germany

"The Tale of Hyuki and Bil (Jack and Jill)"

"The Champion Drinker"
"Mistletoe, the Fruit of the Oak"
"A Man in the Moon"

Algeria

"The First Tears"

Columbia

"Moon Waters"&

Wales

"Talesin, Birth of a Poet"

"St. Dwnywenâs Ice"
"Sitting on the Moon"

Denmark
;

"The Snow Queen"

Great Britain

"Tales of the Oak Spirit"

Nigeria

"A Nigerian Moon Tale"

Burma

"The Magic Pestle"

Calendars

Astronomical calendars are based on the rotation of Earth (the day), the revolution
of the Earth around the Sun (the year), and the revolution of the Moon around the
Earth (the month). Things would be much easier if all these cycles were
synchronized. Unfortunately they do not quite jive. Three distinct calendars have
arisen out of this problem.A solar calendar, such as the West's Gregorian calendar,
is based on the tropical year. Every four years (leap year), an extra day is added to
keep things on track. A lunar calendar follows the phases of the Moon irrespective
of the tropical year, and a lunar-solar calendar follows the lunar cycle but has an
entire month added every few years in order to keep in sync with the tropical year.

The Islamic calendar, for example, follows a purely lunar cycle. Over a period of
about thirty-three years, the months slowly regress through the seasons. Each
month begins with the first sliver of the waxing Moon, although for civil purposes a
tabulated calendar is used that approximates the lunar cycle. The mean length of
the month on the civil calendar is only 2.9 seconds less than the synodic cycle.

Gods & Goddesses

Thoth, Ancient Egypt

Bridgit the Enchantress, Celtic Ireland
Diana, Ancient Rome
Artemis the Divine Archer, Ancient Greece
Shing-Moo, Ancient China
Cybele, the Lioness, Ancient Phrygia
Sinn, Ancient Babylonia
Hecate, the Dark One, Ancient Greece
Lilith, Ancient Sumeria
Khons the forgotten Egyptian, Ancient Egypt
Caridwen, Queen of the Cauldron
Danu, the Good Mother, Ireland
Isis, Mistress of Magic, Ancient Egypt.

Scapegoat of our Darker Nature

Do you think the full Moon has some unexplainable effect on our behavior? Early psychologists
had no doubt about the Moon's effect on our mental states. The "lunatic," (derived from the
Latin "luna" or Moon) was separated from the chronically insane, and extra staff were called into
the asylums on the occasion of a full Moon. Special allowances were often made before the full
Moon. The English laborer Charles Hyde was acquitted on murder charges on the grounds that he
was under the spell of the full moon. The American Institute for Climatology concluded, "crimes
with a strong psychotic motivation, such as arson, kleptomania, destructive driving, and homicidal
alcoholism, all showed peaks when the Moon was full and that cloudy nights offered no protection
against this trend."

Lycanthropic Metamorphosis

Lycanthropy officailly derives its name from the Greek king Lycaon who was transformed into a
wolf for playing an ill-concieved trick on Zeus. Stories of werewolves bring out the more sinister
aspects of Moon lore. They can be found in cultures from around the world, but no matter where
the stories originate, the full Moon has always been seen as the cause. An Eighteenth Century
psychologist describes its effects: "The desire to run comes upon them. They leave their beds,
jump out of a window, and plunge into a fountain, after the bath, they come out covered with
dense fur, walking on all fours, and commence a raid over fields and meadows, through woods and
villages, biting all beasts and human beings that come their way. At the approach of dawn, they
return to the spring, plunge into it, lose their furry skins, and again regain their deserted beds."
If you want to find out more about werewolves check out these links (please note: these pages
are off-site. NASA is not responsible for their content):