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Man in the Moon (The)

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Some say it is a man leaning on a fork, on which he is carrying a bundle of sticks picked up on a Sunday. The origin of this fable is from Num. xv. 32–36. Some add a dog also; thus the prologue in Midsummer Night’s Dream says, “This man with lantern, dog, and bush of thorns, presenteth moonshine;” Chaucer says “he stole the bush” (Test. of Cresseide). Another tradition says that the man is Cain, with his dog and thornbush; the thorn-bush being emblematical of the thorns and briars of the fall, and the dog being the “foul fiend.” Some poets make out the “man” to be Endymʹion, taken to the moon by Diana.

Man in the moon. The nameless person at one time employed in elections to negotiate bribes. Thus the rumour was set flying among the electors that “the Man in the Moon had arrived.”

I know no more about it than the man in the moon. I know nothing at all about the matter.

 

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Man (Isle of)
Man
Man Friday (A)
Man-jack
Man … Monkey
Man-Mountain or Quinbus Flestrin
Man Proposes
Man Threefold
Man in Black (The)
Man in the Iron Mask (The)
Man in the Moon (The)
Man of Belial
Man of Blood
Man of Blood and Iron (The)
Man of Brass (The)
Man of December
Man of Destiny (The)
Man of Feeling
Man of Letters (A)
Man of Remnants (A)
Man of Ross

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Old Man of the Moon (The)