Theft of moon. Moon is kept by a monster. It is stolen and brought to earth.
Mythological motifs. · Cosmogony and cosmology. · The heavens. · The moon. · Nature and condition of the moon. · view the constellation · filed as A758
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On our shelf — the index’s citations, resolved to served chapters
- Eskimo (Bering Strait)The Kalevala, Rune XLVIIThompson cites: Nelson RBAE XVIII 483. – Finnish: Kalevala runes 47, 49.
The motif on our shelf
— written from the served texts; every claim cited receiptThompson gave moon-theft its own address, and its lead witness — Eskimo, "Nelson RBAE XVIII 483" — is unserved; what resolves is the Finnish pair he lists second. The Moon is taken first, and tenderly: Louhi "In her arms she takes fair Luna / From her cradle in the birch-tree", and hides her "In a rock of many colors" [The Kalevala, Rune XLVII]. The jailer's taunt addresses both prisoners as one hoard: "Moon of gold and Sun of silver, / Hide your faces in the caverns" [ibid.]. Two runes on, the release is announced by the thief herself, arriving in dove-shape with glad tidings of her own defeat: "That the Moon no more is hidden / In the copper-bearing mountains" [The Kalevala, Rune XLIX]; and Wainamoinen posts the freed Moon back to her schedule — "Let the Moon be ever with thee", he tells the Sun [ibid.]. The honest note for this address: on our shelf, moon-theft and sun-theft are one crime filed twice. Every line above serves A721.1 equally, and nothing yet served separates the Moon's case from the Sun's; that separation waits on the unserved Bering Strait text Thompson put first.
Witnesses: The Kalevala, Rune XLVII · The Kalevala, Rune XLIX