The bookworm and the crab
How to see the crab in the moon
How to see the bookworm in the moon
Since writing the pages on The Man in the Moon ,
The Toad and the hare ,
and The Utchat , I have discovered that the
South Sea Islanders see a crab in the full moon.
The crab is formed from the Oceanus Procellarum, the Mare Nubium
and the Mare Imbrium. It is sitting on the western side of the moon
looking east, with its legs curving towards the north and south poles.
Seen from another angle, this group of craters looks like a girl
reading a book. Her head is the Mare Nubium, and the book is
the same group of craters that form the crab's eyes
[1]
As a cancerian
(see horoscope ),
I find this very interesting. Cancer is the sign which the sun enters on
Midsummer's Day, and
it is ruled by the moon.
It's a very faint constellation, which doesn't look like anything in
particular. In the past, it has been represented as two
donkeys
(donkeys are associated with the Midsummer solstice - just think of
A Midsummer Night's Dream)
and as a scarab beetle
(which the Egyptians believed
rolled the sun across the sky like a ball of dung).
Both of which make some sense to me.
I could never understand why the Greeks viewed it as a crab.
Most of the other signs are connected with important myths
(The golden fleece, Theseus, Orion, Ganymede etc.),
but the crab only appears briefly in the Greek legends,
when it pinches Hercules' toe as he battles the Hydra.
click here
for more images seen in the craters of the moon
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