THE WOMAN IN THE MOON. (JANNSEN.)

Sacred-Texts Legends & Sagas   

p. 37

ONE Saturday evening a woman went very late to the river to fetch water. The Moon shone brightly in the heavens, and she said to him, “Why do you stand gaping up there? You’d better come and help me carry water. I must work here, and you dawdle about above!”

 Suddenly the Moon came down from above, but he seized the woman and took her with him into the sky. There she still stands with her two pails as a warning to everybody not to work too late in the evening on holidays. But the Moon knows no rest, and can never dawdle about, for he must wander from land to land, and everywhere illumine the darkness of night with his light.¹

Footnotes

p. 37

¹ Compare the Kalevipoeg, Canto 1.