Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/213

 the medicine party are then holding converse with the man in the moon. … After a short time the moon waned away, and the conjuring party returned whooping to their house.”

Now let us turn to Scandinavian mythology, and see what we learn from that source.

Mâni, the moon, stole two children from their parents, and carried them up to heaven. Their names were Hjuki and Bil. They had been drawing water from the well Byrgir, in the bucket Seegr, suspended from the pole Simul, which they bore upon their shoulders. These children, pole, and bucket were placed in heaven, “where they could be seen from earth.” This refers undoubtedly to the spots in the moon, and so the Swedish peasantry explain these spots to this day, as representing a boy and a girl bearing a pail of water between them. Are we not reminded at once of our nursery rhyme— “Jack and Jill went up a hill To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down, and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after?” This verse, which to us seems at first sight nonsense, I have no hesitation in saying has a high antiquity, and refers to the Eddaic Hjuki and Bil.