Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/237

Rh festival known as "congratulating" or "rewarding" the moon (M. Huc, Travels in Tartary, etc., i, 61, and J. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, ii, 65). In Lancashire "there exists a precisely similar custom of making cakes in honour of the Queen of Heaven" (Dennys, Folk-lore of China, p. 28). Jeremiah, vii, 18, says, "The women knead dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven." Plainly these are all survivals of the primitive rite of "eating the god". Fertility was thereby secured in this case. In modern Greek folk-lore a "magic cake" is used as a bait wherewith to catch the moon.

Finally, there remains the savage theory which is implied in the terms σεληνιαζόμενοι, lunatici, moon-struck. Roscher's view is that the moon influences menstruation, as Aristotle holds ; that irregular menstruation produces diseases, as Galen hath it; and therefore all diseases, including epilepsy, are ascribed to the influence of the moon. But primitive man did not read Aristotle, or even Galen. We want some less recondite explanation. One thing is certain : the connection between the moon and disease was something that to primitive man was self-evident. It is recognised in Brazil (Brinton, Myths of the New World, 134) as well as in Denmark (J. T. Bunce, Fairy Tales, 131), in Mexico (Brinton, 132) as well as in Iceland (Jón Arnason. Legends of Iceland, 635). Another thing we know, that is that diseases are regarded by primitive man as the work of spirits entering into possession of the sick person. And we have already seen that the moon is held by primitive folk, including Pythagoras, to be the abode of departed spirits. Is not this the connecting link ? Do not the spirits dart straight from the moon into any person who is not on his guard against them, or is for any special reason an easy prey for them ? According to Porphyr., De Antro Ny., 28, 29, "theologians" say the sun and the moon are the gates by which departed souls pass from and to the earth ; and the moon is the gate by which they come down to the earth. In Iceland, "if a pregnant