Shooting the Moon

How many times have we heard James Deacon, John Wayne, Glenn Ford, James Stewart etc. drawl “Must be a drunk shooting the moon?” But last week I actually shot the moon...of course not with a gun but with my new 500 mm bazooka of a lens. After having downloaded the picture, I suddenly realised that yes there is a rabbit on the moon we have read about or the man or the lantern bearer. So I started reading and came up with a large volume of information. Then I thought why not share it with my friends...I know it is not really 

Moonshine(!!!) but then it is all about shooting the moon, mooning, rabbits and folklore...

 The Moon I Shot

The Moon rabbit, also called the Jade Rabbit, is a rabbit that lives on the moon in folklore, based on pareidolia that identifies the markings of the moon as a rabbit. The story exists in many cultures, particularly in 

East Asian folklore, where it is seen pounding in a mortar and pestle (C).

 In Chinese folklore, it is often portrayed as a companion of the moon goddess Chang'e, constantly pounding the elixir of life for her; but in Japanese and Korean versions it is just pounding the ingredients for rice cake.

 Chandra is  Hindu god that is associated with the moon. It’s interesting because of the fact that there are several additional symbols that we see here that are commonly associated with the moon. In Hindu art, Chandra is sometimes an embryo and sometimes a bull. Fertility is frequently associated with the moon. The bull is also a symbol that has shown up as related to the moon across cultures. The main thing about Chandra though is its link with the moon as an elixir for it is referred to as Soma. Soma is the name of a drink said to be consumed by the Gods. Interestingly, the moon rabbit that lives on the moon with Chang’e in the Chinese myth is also an elixir-making symbol.   There is a mention a rabbit on the moon  in the Chu Ci, a Western Han anthology of Chinese poems from the Warring States period, which notes that along with a toad, there is a rabbit on the moon who constantly pounds herbs for the immortals.

In the Buddhist Śaśajâtaka (Jataka Tale), a monkey, an otter, a jackal, and a rabbit resolved to practice charity on the day of the full moon, believing a demonstration of great virtue would earn a great reward.  When an old man begged for food, the monkey gathered fruits from the trees and the otter collected fish, while the jackal wrongfully pilfered a lizard and a pot of milk-curd. The rabbit, who knew only how to gather grass, instead offered its own body, throwing itself into a fire the man had built. The rabbit, however, was not burnt. The old man revealed himself to be Buddha and, touched by the rabbit's virtue, drew the likeness of the rabbit on the moon for all to see. It is said the lunar image is still draped in the smoke that rose when the rabbit cast itself into the fire.

Similar legends occur in Mexican folklore, where people also identified the markings on the moon as a rabbit. According to an Aztec legend, the god Quetzalcoatl, then living on Earth as a man, started on a journey and, after walking for a long time, became hungry and tired. With no food or water around, he thought he would die. Then a rabbit grazing nearby, offered himself as food to save his life. Quetzalcoatl, moved by the rabbit's noble offering, elevated him to the moon, then lowered him back to Earth and told him, "You may be just a rabbit, but everyone will remember you; there is your image in light, for all men and for all times."

Another Mesoamerican legend tells of the brave and noble sacrifice of Nanahuatzin during the creation of the fifth sun. Humble Nanahuatzin sacrificed himself in fire to become the new sun, but the wealthy god Tecciztecatl hesitated four times before he finally set himself alight to become the moon. Due to Tecciztecatl's cowardice, the gods felt that the moon should not be as bright as the sun, so one of the gods threw a rabbit at his face to diminish his light. It is also said that Tecciztecatl was in the form of a rabbit when he sacrificed himself to become the moon, casting his shadow there.

A Native American (Cree) legend tells a different variation, about a young rabbit who wished to ride the moon. Only the crane was willing to take him. The trip stretched Crane's legs as the heavy rabbit held them tightly, leaving them elongated as crane's legs are now. When they reached the moon Rabbit touched Crane's head with a bleeding paw, leaving the red mark cranes wear to this day. According to the legend, Rabbit still rides the moon to this day.

The Man in the Moon is an imaginary figure resembling a human face, head or body, which observers from some cultural backgrounds typically perceive in the bright disc of the full moon. The figure is composed of the dark areas (the lunar maria, or "seas") and lighter highlands of the lunar surface.

There are various explanations as to how there came to be a Man in the Moon.

A longstanding European tradition holds that the man was banished to the moon for some crime. Christian lore commonly held that he is the man caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath and sentenced by God to death by stoning in the book of Numbers XV.32-36. Some Germanic cultures thought he was a man caught stealing from a neighbour’s hedgerow to repair his own. There is a Roman legend that he is a sheep-thief.

One medieval Christian tradition claims him as Cain, the Wanderer, forever doomed to circle the Earth. 

Dante's Inferno alludes to this:

"For now doth Cain with fork of thorns confine

On either hemisphere, touching the wave

Beneath the towers of Seville.

Yester night

The moon was round."

This is mentioned again in his Paradise:

“But tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots

Upon this body, which below on earth

Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?”

There is a tradition that the Man in the Moon enjoyed drinking, especially claret. An old ballad runs:

"Our man in the moon drinks clarret,

With powder-beef, turnep, and carret.

If he doth so, why should not you

Drink until the sky looks blew?"

Plutarch, in his treatise, Of the Face appearing in the “roundle of the Moone”, cites the poet Agesinax as saying of that orb,

"All roundabout environed

With fire she is illumined:

And in the middes there doth appeere,

Like to some boy, a visage cleere;

Whose eies to us doe seem in view,

Of colour grayish more than blew:

The browes and forehead tender seeme,

The cheeks all reddish one would deeme."

In the renaissance, the man in the moon was known as Moonshine and carries a lantern as a traditional accessory.

“Ay, or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and

A lantern, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present,

The person of Moonshine.”

 William Shakespeare ~A Midsummer Night's Dream

There is a traditional Mother Goose nursery rhyme featuring the Man in the Moon:

"The man in the moon came down too soon,

and asked his way to Norwich,

They sent him south and he burnt his mouth

 By eating cold pease-porridge."