The Moon is made of green cheese

In its original formulation as a proverb and metaphor for credulity with roots in fable, this refers to the perception of a simpleton who sees a reflection of the Moon in water and mistakes it for a round cheese wheel.

In his efforts the rope breaks, and he falls back, but seeing the moon in the sky, praises Allah that the moon is safe; the Scottish tale of the wolf fishing with his tail for the moon reflection;This folkloric motif is first recorded in literature during the High Middle Ages by the French rabbi Rashi with a Rabbinic parable in his commentary weaving together three Biblical quotations given in the main text (including one on "sour grapes") into a reconstruction of some of the Talmudic Rabbi Meir's supposed three hundred fox fables in the tractate Sanhedrin:[11] A fox once craftily induced a wolf to go and join the Jews in their Sabbath preparations and share in their festivities.

However, Rashi may have actively "adapted contemporary [French] folklore to the [T]almudic passage", as was homiletically practiced in different Jewish communities.

Petrus Alphonsi, a Spanish Jewish convert to Christianity, popularized this tale in Europe in his collection Disciplina Clericalis.

[10] The variation featuring Reynard the Fox appeared soon after Petrus Alphonsi in the French classic Le Roman de Renart (as "Renart et Ysengrin dans le puits" in Branch IV); the Moon/cheese element is absent (it is replaced by a promise of Paradise at the bottom of the well), but such a version is alluded to in another part of the collection.

[16] In French, there is the proverb "Il veut prendre la lune avec les dents" ("He wants to take the moon with his teeth"), alluded to in Rabelais.

[17] The characterization is also common in stories of gothamites, including the Moonrakers of Wiltshire, who were said to have taken advantage of this trope, and the assumption of their own naivete, to hide their smuggling activities from government officials.

[citation needed] A 1902 survey of childlore by psychologist G. Stanley Hall in the United States found that though most young children were unsure of the Moon's composition, that it was made of cheese was the single most common explanation: Careful inquiry and reminiscence concerning the substance of the moon show that eighteen children [of 423], averaging five years, thought it made of cheese.

[18]Before that time, and since, the idea of the Moon actually being made of cheese has appeared as a humorous conceit in much of children's popular culture with astronomical themes (cf.

At the Science Writers' conference, theoretical physicist Sean M. Carroll explained why there was no need to "sample the moon to know it's not made of cheese."

"[21] In the 1989 film A Grand Day Out, the plot hinges on Wallace and Gromit going to the Moon to gather cheese due to a lack of it at home on a bank holiday.