e Man in the Moon
Came down too soon
And asked his way to Norwich';

but whether he ever reached that city the same authority does not
state." Dante calls him Cain; Chaucer has him put up there as a
punishment for theft, and gives him a thorn-bush to carry; Shakespeare
also loads him with the thorns, but by way of compensation gives him a
dog for a companion. Ordinarily, however, his offence is stated to have
been, not stealing, but Sabbath-breaking,--an idea derived from the Old
Testament. Like the man mentioned in the Book of Numbers, he is caught
gathering sticks on the Sabbath; and, as an example to mankind, he is
condemned to stand forever in the moon, with his bundle on his back.
Instead of a dog, one German version places with him a woman, whose
crime was churning butter on Sunday. She carries her butter-tub; and
this brings us to Mother Goose again:--

"Jack and Jill went up the hill
To get a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after."

This may read like mere nonsense; but there is a point of view from
which it may be safely said that there is very little absolute nonsense
in the world. The story of Jack and Jill is a venerable one. In
Icelandic mythology we read that Jack and Jill were two children whom
the moon once kidnapped and carried up to heaven. They had been drawing
water in a bucket, which they were carrying by means of a pole placed
across their shoulders; and in this attitude they have stood to the
present day in the moon. Even now this explanation of the moon-spots
is to be heard from the mouths of Swedish peasants. They fall away one
after the other, as the moon wanes, and their water-pail symbolizes the
supposed connection of the moon with rain-storms. Other forms of the
myth occur in Sanskrit.

The moon-goddess, or Aphrodite, of the ancient Germans, was called
Horsel, or Ursula, who figures in Christian mediaeval mythology as a
persecuted saint, attended by a troop of eleven thousand virgins,
who all suffer martyrdom as they journey from England to Cologne. The
meaning of the myth is obvious. In German mythology, England is the
Phaiakian land of clouds and phantoms; the succubus, leaving her lover
before daybreak, excuses herself on the plea that "her mother is calling
her in England." [15] The companions of Ursula are the pure stars, who
leave the cloudland and suffer martyrdom as they approach the regions
of day. In t