In the Edda, we read that " MundilfOri had two children—a son, Mani (moon), and a daughter, 581 (sun);" and in German, is masculine and the sun feminine to this day. It was the same in Ang.-Sax. ; although modern English has in this matter followed the classic mythology, in which Phoebus and Sol are gods; and Selene, Luna, and Diana are goddesses; Grimm (Deutsche Mythologie, p. WM quotes an old invocation to the " New Moon, gracibus lord" (Never Mon, holder herr), for increase of wealth; and down to recent times the German people were fond of speaking of " frau soune," and "herr mond" ("lady sun," and "lord moon"). The same inversion (as it appears to us) of gender is found among the Lithuanians and Arabians, and even the ancient Mexican mettle (moon) was masculine. Among the Slaves, according to Grimm, the moon is etas., a star fern., and the sun neut. In Hindu mythology also, the moon—Chandra or Soma—is a male deity, represented by one myth as the son of the Atri, who procreated him from his eyes, but by another as arising from the milk-sea when it was churned by the gods for the attainment of the beverage of immortality. His wives are the 27 daughters of the patriarch Daksha, known as the nymphs of the lunar constella tions. By one of them, Rollin], he had a son BlIdlia (not to be confounded with Bud dha), the regent of the planet Mercury, who begot on rm, a son, Puraravas, who became the ancestor of a royal family, hence called the lunar dynasty.—The moon is generally represented as wearing white garments, with a mace in one hand, and riding hi a chariot drawn by ten horses or antelopes. The animal sacred to him is the hare (the Hindus
believing that an outline like that of a hare is visible on the moon); and the plants under his special patronage are a certain variety of the lotus, which flowers when the moon rises, and the soma plant, or asclepias acida. As the receptacle of the beverage of immor tality, he is thus described in the Vishnu-Purana: " The radiant sun supplies the moon, when reduced by the draughts of the gods to a single digit, with a single ray; and in the same proportion as the ruler of the night is exhausted by the celestials. it is replen ished by the sun for the gods drink the nectar, accumulated in the moon during half the month; and from this being their food, they are immortal: 33,000, 3,300, and 33 divinities drink the lunar nectar. When two digits remain, the moon enters the orbit of the sun, and abides in the ray called Ama In that orbit, the moon is immersed for a day anti night in the water, thence it enters the branches and shoots of the trees, and thence goes to the sun - When the remaining portion of the moon consists of but a 15th part, the manes approach it in the afternoon, and drink the last portion, that sacred digit which is composed of nectar In this manner the moon, with its cooling rays, nourishes the gods in the light fortnight (or the 15 days of the moon's increase), the manes in the dark fortnight (when in the wane); vegetables, with the cool ucctary aqueous atoms it sheds upon them; and through their develop ment it sustains men, animals, and insects, at the same time gratifying them by its radi ance."