Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/211

 deed is one of conveyance of a messuage, barn, and four acres of ground, in the parish of Kingston-on-Thames, from Walter de Grendesse, clerk, to Margaret his mother. On the seal we see the man carrying his sticks, and the moon surrounds him. There are also a couple of stars added, perhaps to show that he is in the sky. The legend on the seal reads:— “Te Waltere docebo cur spinas phebo gero,” which may be translated, “I will teach thee, Walter, why I carry thorns in the moon.”

The carved wooden sign of the “Man in the Moon,” in Wych Street, Strand, a rare example of the suspended signs now to be found built into the wall, must not pass unnoticed. Other items connected with lunar mythology must be only briefly alluded to. According to the classic tale the figure in the moon is probably Endymion, beloved of Selene, and held by her passionately to her bosom. The Egyptian representations of the moon with a figure in the disk, represent the little Horus in the womb of his mother Isis. Plutarch wrote a tract on the Face in the Moon.