Ages ago there went one Sunday morning an old man into the wood to hew
sticks. He cut a fagot and slung it on a stout staff, cast it over his
shoulder, and began to trudge home with his burden. On his way he met
a handsome man in Sunday suit, walking towards the Church; this man
stopped and asked the fagot-bearer, "Do you know that this is Sunday
on earth, when all must rest from their labors?"
"Sunday on earth, or Monday in heaven, it is all one to me!" laughed
the wood-cutter.
"Then bear your bundle forever," answered the stranger; "and as you
value not Sunday on earth, yours shall be a perpetual Moon-day in
heaven; and you shall stand for eternity in the moon, a warning to all
Sabbath-breakers." Thereupon the stranger vanished, and the man was
caught up with his stock and his fagot into the moon, where he stands
yet.
The superstition seems to be old in Germany, for the full moon is
spoken of as _wadel_, or _wedel_, a fagot. Tobler relates the story
thus: "An arma mAe ket alawel am Sonnti holz ufglesa. Do hedem der
liebe Gott dwahl gloh, A¶b er lieber wott ider sonn verbrenna oder im
mo verfrura, do willer lieber inn mo ihi. Dromm siedma no jetz an ma
im mo inna, wenns wedel ist. Er hed a pA1/4scheli uffem rogga."[30] That
is to say, he was given the choice of burning in the sun, or of
freezing in the moon; he chose the latter; and now at full moon he is
to be seen seated with his bundle of fagots on his back.
In Schaumburg-Lippe,[31] the story goes, that a man and a woman stand
in the moon, the man because he strewed brambles and thorns on the
church path, so as to hinder people from attending Mass on Sunday
morning; the woman because she made butter on that day. The man
carries his bundle of thorns, the woman her butter-tub. A similar tale
is told in Swabia and in Marken. Fischart[32] says, that there "is to
be seen in the moon a manikin who stole wood;" and PrA|torius, in his
description of the world,[33] that "superstitious people assert that
the black flecks in the moon are a man who gathered wood on a Sabbath,
and is therefore turned into stone."
The Dutch household myth is, that the unhappy man was caught stealing
vegetables. Dante calls him Cain:--
"... Now doth Cain with fork of thorns confine,
On either hemisphere, touching the wave
Beneath the towers of Seville. Yesternight
The moon was round."
_Hell_, cant. xx.