We might go on almost indefinitely citing household tales of
wonderful sleepers; but, on the principle of the association
of opposites, we are here reminded of sundry cases of
marvellous life and wakefulness, illustrated in the Wandering
Jew; the dancers of Kolbeck; Joseph of Arimathaea with the
Holy Grail; the Wild Huntsman who to all eternity chases the
red deer; the Captain of the Phantom Ship; the classic
Tithonos; and the Man in the Moon.

The lunar spots have afforded a rich subject for the play of
human fancy. Plutarch wrote a treatise on them, but the
myth-makers had been before him. "Every one," says Mr.
Baring-Gould, "knows that the moon is inhabited by a man with
a bundle of sticks on his back, who has been exiled thither
for many centuries, and who is so far off that he is beyond
the reach of death. He has once visited this earth, if the
nursery rhyme is to be credited when it asserts that

'The Man in the Moon
Came down too soon
And asked his way to Norwich';

but whether he ever reached that city the same authority does
not state." Dante calls him Cain; Chaucer has him put up there
as a punishment for theft, and gives him a thorn-bush to
carry; Shakespeare also loads him with the thorns, but by way
of compensation gives him a dog for a companion. Ordinarily,
however, his offence is stated to have been, not stealing, but
Sabbath-breaking,--an idea derived from the Old Testament.
Like the man mentioned in the Book of Numbers, he is caught