Pondering the "Man in the Moon"

  Sometimes you just have to wonder about how legends ever came to be.  Some, I can understand.  Others are so far-fetched that reading them makes me scratch my head in confusion.  My reading, as of late, has been filled with legends since the upcoming Annual Clue Hunt on the Bayou deals with mostly "Bayou" legends.  I never realized just how many of the tales dealt with either bayous, bogs, swamps, mires, marshes or whatever.  "The Rougarou", "The Will-o-the-wisps", "The Fountain of Youth" are among a few of the more familiar ones.  (Now that I mentioned these, don't you just want to go read them?)  The Rougarou is sort of a Cajun version of the werewolf tales of old.  Ok, so I see where a spin could be taken on some of the other tales but what makes me wonder is how this was originally a tale to "scare" tots into going to bed.  "You better get yourself in that bed before the Rougarou gets you!"  Yep, that would make me just want to race down the hall into a dark room, jump into bed and expect to get a peaceful night's sleep!  The Will-o-the-wisps is at least somewhat nicer.  In most versions, these are described as faerie lights seen out over the mires. They were pixies that used their lanterns to lure folks into the marshes. More oft than not, these wayward folks were "drunken" sports who lost their way home.  The sots would follow the lights deeper and deeper into the marsh until they were stuck forever.  From my way of thinking, the drunkards were probably seeing a lot more than lights and just did not have enough sense to follow the road.  Of course, there are many versions of the Fountain of Youth...so we won't even go there right now.

  One of the things that really made me ponder was the tale of "The Man in the Moon".  Some say that if you look really hard you can actually see the face of a man looking back at you or you can see the full body of a man carrying sticks on his back.  To this, I say...we must be traveling back to the tale of the Will-o-the-wisps and folks telling the tale are imbibing a bit. If you can actually see these things without a vast amount of imagination, your eyesight is either clouded or vastly clearer than mine. Whichever!  I have stared at that old moon and, for the life of me, cannot see a man.  I do not disparage the fact that perhaps others can see him but not me.  And I especially cannot see his face in a crescent moon even though most of the time he is depicted as a profile.  

  The version with the man carrying a load of sticks comes from long ago and has been handed down through verbal lore.  It seems that European tradition says that this is a man who was caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath.  It seems that he was a poor man who was trying to warm his hearth but a rule is a rule. As punishment for working on that day, he was banished to the moon.  There, he was doomed to circle the earth forever as part of his sentence. To this day, he carries his load of sticks round and round the earth year after year.  That sure seems like a tough punishment for gathering sticks to keep warm. 

  Another version says that it is not a man at all but rather frogs.  I have never heard tell of "Frogs on the Moon" but, hey, we are talking legends here.  Seems that a great flood came and washed three frog sisters from their house.  The waters ran deep and washed the froggies down to a great eddy that swished them to the House of the Moon.  Once there they wished to reach a higher place as to not get wet so they perched themselves upon his head.  Here, they can still be seen each night there is a full moon.  Hmmmm...that one is really a head-scratcher!

  All of this pondering is merely because of a clue hunt and my working on props.  As I sat creating a very rustic version of a crescent moon, a thought went through my head.  I wonder just what the theme for next year will be and if it will be just as entertaining.  What ever possessed me to do legends?  Goodness!