Dancing in the moonlight

Long thought to influence our behaviour, as well as that of the sea and all flora and fauna, the mystical power of the moon continues to exert a hold on us, observes Jeremy Hobson

- Jeremy Hobson

HOW many have danced under the moon’s spotlight or held hands, looked up into the heavens and promised each other the earth? ‘I love you to the moon and back’ might be a common phrase, but, beware, that which shines brightly does not necessarily bring good fortune. Indeed, in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare advises that we should be wary of ‘the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb’. And, in Othello, that: ‘It is the very error of the moon. She comes more nearer earth than she was wont. And makes men mad.’

The full moon has long been said to influence behaviour. It’s no coincidence that the word ‘lunatic’ is derived from Luna—the personification of the moon in Roman mythology. Hippocrates diagnosed those ‘seized with terror, fright and madness during the night’ as having been ‘visited by the goddess of the moon’. In England, it was once possible for murderers to appeal for clemency if they committed an evil deed during a full moon.

Reach for the moon

Inhabitants of Wiltshire are known as ‘moonrakers’; an epithet resulting from the days when French and Dutch spirits were brought into England illegally and temporarily hidden in, for example, the murk of village ponds. At one location (perhaps the Crammer pond, Devizes), local smugglers were surprised by the excise men as they retrieved barrels sequestered there. They excused their activity by saying they thought the full moon was a round of cheese that had dropped into the water—the excise men, thinking the locals somewhat lacking in intelligence, went on their way.