Man in the Moon

[1][2] Another held that he is the man caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath and sentenced by God to death by stoning in the Book of Numbers XV.32–36.

[citation needed] One medieval Christian tradition claims that he is Cain, the Wanderer, forever doomed to circle the Earth.

Dante's Inferno[5] alludes to this: For now doth Cain with fork of thorns confine On either hemisphere, touching the wave Beneath the towers of Seville.

This is mentioned again in his Paradise:[6] But tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots Upon this body, which below on earth Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?

The boy's father had told him the Moon's light would brighten the night, allowing the chore to be completed.

[12][13] The trio has become the personifications of the Tết Trung Thu, when they descend to the mortal world and give out cellophane lanterns, mooncakes and gifts to children.

Some depict a man with a face turned away from the viewer on the ground, for example when viewed from North America, with Jesus Christ's crown shown as the lighter ring around Mare Imbrium.

Another common one is a cowled Death's head looking down at Earth, with the black lava rock 'hood' around the white dust bone of the skull, and also forming the eye sockets.

The Man in the Moone by Francis Godwin, published in 1638, is one of the earliest novels thought of as containing several traits prototypical of science fiction.

These vast, flat spots on the Moon are called "maria" or "seas" because, for a long time, astronomers believed they were large bodies of water.

[22] The near side of the Moon with these maria that make up the man is always facing Earth due to a tidal locking, or synchronous orbit.