Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
I believe that in ancient China the moon was a distant world in its own right, a watery planet covered with thick forests. The branches of these dark-skinned trees were empty when the moon waned, giving it a dark and foreboding appearance, and when it waxed they filled with beautiful white blossoms that made it glow glorious and silver.
The Celestial Chang'e lives in a fine forest manor on the moon, mourning the loss of her husband Houyi, who shot down nine of the ten suns - which were divine firebirds, by the way. Various Daoist Immortals also live there, or were banished there as a punishment - the failed Immortal Wu Gang was sent to the moon for laziness and/or familicide, where he endlessly hacked away at one of the moon's undying trees, doomed to never finish cutting it down. This immortal quality of the moon's alien vegetation is exploited by its rabbits, who long ago immigrated to the lunar surface with divine aid, and constantly pound its silvery herbs to create potions of immortality for the residents. Possibly their great ancestor is the same rabbit sent there by Quetzalcoatl in Aztec mythology. Who can say?
Speaking of Aztec mythology, their moon was the giant severed head of a goddess, flung into the Heavens by her murderous brother the sun god. She spins in icy orbit to this day, the copper bells that hung from her ears casting a red hue about her bloodless white face whenever the sun's light makes her shine full. Another Aztec moon is almost as grisly, being the burned-up corpse of a cowardly god who failed to properly immolate himself in order to become the next sun. He waxes when his embers glow, and wanes when his burned flesh is all that can be seen.
This is not to discount the monstrous Greenland god Annigan, who was himself the moon and chased his sister the sun in order to devour her entirely. As she fled, he would go hungry or nibble down parts of her shining flesh, causing him to wax and wane in power and fatness throughout the month. The Japanese moon involves similar sibling rivalry, since the moon is Tsukiyomi, the right eyeball of the father-god Izanagi. His sister was the sun, Amaterasu, the left eyeball of Izanagi, and their falling out resulted in day and night being forever separate. Mani and Sol were the Norse moon and sun, brothers hurled from the Earth by gods jealous of their shining beauty, and chased across the sky by wolves until Ragnarok, when they will be eaten.
Earlier Chinese myth also posited a living moon - or rather, twelve, one for each month, shining children born from the same mother as the ten suns. In silver chariots they journeyed across the world once a year, every journey taking a full month. The Hindu moon is also a god in a silver chariot, drawn by white horses, and he guards the elixir of immortality after which he is named, Soma. The Greeks and Romans also had a silver chariot driven by Luna to display her beauty in full alongside Sol, albeit a two-yoke to his four. The Egyptians also regarded the moon as an item or goddess carried in a vessel, albeit a boat rather than a chariot - unless it was the left eye of the young sun god Horus, weaker than his right eye the sun because it was injured by his uncle Seth.
So the moon could be a corpse, a planet, a person, a chariot, an eyeball, a child, a boat, or something even weirder.
Don't limit yourself.
