Join us at the campfire for tales from around the world, told by storytellers of all backgrounds and creeds. From the heros and heroines of old, let us relearn and rediscover the wisdom of our ancestors. Shhh..the story begins..

Since the beginning of time, people have gazed with wonder upon the pale, gleaming disk visible in the night sky and observed the silhouette of someone, or something, upon its surface. It might appear to be an animal, or a person, or even the contours of more than one of either. Every land and every age had a different vision and a different tale of how the inhabitant or inhabitants of the moon took up residence.

In ancient Sweden, when the people of that land believed the moon itself was a living being, the story was told of a brother and sister named Hijuki and Bil, who lived with their parents on a lonely farm in the far north. Every evening, the boy and girl left the small wooden house at the foot of the hill and climbed a winding path to the well that provided the family with water. As they struggled home, carrying the full and heavy bucket between them, Mani...the Swedish Moon...beamed down upon the children and admired their beauty.

One night, as Hijuki and Bil trudged homeward with their bucket of water, the all-powerful Mani reached down and swept the pair up into the sky, to live as captives in the moon. Forever after, each month as the moon waned, first Hijuki fell off its face and then Bil came tumbling after her brother. The tale traveled and the old nursery rhyme of "Jack and Jill" came to commemorate their plight.

In Germany and in other areas of Europe, people saw only a lone figure in the moon, an old man carrying a load of firewood. Some accounts relate that he was once an earthly thief who had stolen the sticks from a neighbor's woodpile. Other accounts stated that he was a poor peasant who had come by the firewood in honest fashion. However, in either version, the bare facts always remained the same and were recounted as follows.

An old woodsman was seen carrying a bundle of sticks on a Sunday. Such labor was forbidden on the week's sacred seventh day, which the ancients dedicated to the solar gods and their descendants reserved for Christian devotions. On this particular afternoon, while his neighbors were at their prayers, the old man plodded out of the woods with his burden of sticks. At a crossroads, he met a stranger dressed in a fine suit of holiday clothes.

"Do you work on Sundays, old father?" asked the stranger, scandalized at the sacrilege. The woodsman chuckled. "Sun-day, Moon-day, it's all the same to me. I don't care. I never rest!"

"Then never shall you rest," replied the stranger as, with a wave of his hand, he changed into an angel. "Every day for you shall be a Moon-day." With a slight nod of his head, both the angel and the old man vanished.

When the villagers finished their worship later that afternoon, they soon noticed that the old man was missing. The peasants organized a search and joined together to comb the surrounding woods and forests, but no trace of the old man could be found. As darkness fell, the villagers returned to their homes. Then, the moon rose in the evening sky, and the people, looking up, gasped with astonishment. There, within the moon, they saw their neighbor, his back bent beneath the bundle of firewood slung across his shoulders, toiling for all eternity.

In Western tales, the moon is usually a home for human forms, but in the East, it has long been seen as the final resting place of a wild animal.

Many thousands of years ago, the Buddha roamed the earth disguised as a humble rustic. During one of his travels, he came upon an ape, a fox, and a hare. The creatures lived together in a clearing in the jungle.

"I am hungry," said the Buddha to the three animals. "Won't you find food for a poor old man?"

So touched were they by the peasant's obvious needs, the three immediately set themselves to the task of gathering together a feast. The ape scaled the trees, selecting the sweetest fruit and most delectable coconuts that he could find. The fox, with his keen wits and pointed nose, poked among the undergrowth and sniffed out plump mushrooms and fragrant herbs.

The ape and the fox carried their harvest back to the clearing and spread the wonderful meal before the old man who, in the meantime, had assembled a pile of twigs and branches. He set the kindling ablaze to make a fire with which to warm himself and his jungle friends.

As darkness began to descend, the hare straggled into the clearing, panting with exhaustion. Not being blessed with the agility of the ape or the cunning of the fox, he had been unable to find any food to offer the peasant. Distraught at his inhospitality, he bowed before the old man.

"I have found nothing to give you to ease your hunger, sir. Please allow me to offer you my humble life." And with that, the hare leapt into the flames.

In an instant, the old man shrugged off his ragged clothes and stood as the tall and splendid Buddha. He reached into the fire and snatched the dying hare from the glowing embers.

"To lay down your life for a man in need is the greatest sacrifice any creature can make," he said. "In gratitude, I shall free you from death eternally." So saying, the Buddha lifted the hare up into the moon for all on earth to see.

Some storytellers said that the hare lived up there in a shining box, secured by a lid which the animal opened a little more each day as the moon progressed through its quarters. Others said that he lived in a crystal mansion with fifteen windows. As the new moon began to wax, the hare, resplendent in a coat of silver, opened his windows one by one each day, until the light shone forth from all of them, finally revealing the luminous glory of the full moon.

Table of Contents

Letter to the Author: