The Moon in Folklore: Harvest Moons, Moon Hares and Old Wishes, for Sleep

A long history of the moon in folklore, told for sleep. It begins on the morning of the Apollo 11 landing, when Houston read the crew a newspaper item about Chang'e and her rabbit, then goes back to Hesiod's lucky and unlucky days of the month, Bede's moon-months, and the Harvest Moon that rises near sunset for several evenings running, as the shepherd-turned-astronomer James Ferguson explained. From Thomas Tusser's rhymed farming year, the hock cart and the harvest home, it follows the hare: the animal Caesar's Britons would not eat, the hare Boudica let loose, the seventy-seven names of a medieval poem, and the hare set in the moon in the Buddhist Sasa Jataka. Then the jade rabbit and Chang'e in China, the rice-cake rabbit of Japanese moon-viewing, the rabbit of the Aztec story of the sun and moon, and the Khoekhoe hare who carried the Moon's message wrong. Along the way: the man in the moon and his bundle of thorns, the green-cheese proverb and the Wiltshire Moonrakers, witch-hares and the Easter hare, curtsying to the new moon, Kiddush Levanah, Yue Lao's red cords, Kaguya-hime, how the moon sets the date of Easter and raises the tides, the Lunar Society's lunaticks, the real story of once in a blue moon, and the moon craft named Kaguya and Yutu. Late Night Historian tells real history, with names, dates and sources, at a pace meant for the end of the day. A history for sleep, a little over two hours long. #HistoryForSleep #SleepHistory #MoonFolklore