Yu.E. Berezkin, E.N. Duvakin

Thematic classification and distribution of folklore and mythological motifs by area

Analytical catalogue

Introduction
Bibliography
Ethnicities and habitats

C25B. Moon spinner.

(.14.) .16.18.-.20.23.-.28. (.29.) .44.-.48.52.65.

In the sky, on the moon (rarely in the sun), somewhere outside our world, a character is spinning, weaving, weaving, embroidering or making bast matter.

(Ancient Egypt), Bretons, British, Germans (Rügen Island, Mecklenburg, Upper Palatinate, Swabia), Aranda, Loritya, San Cristobal, Gilbert, Banaba, Tuvalu, Cook Islands (southern), Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii, Easter Island, Gujarati, Uttar Pradesh, Punjabi, Balakhi, Lambadi, Bengali Hindu, Malays, Temuan (mantra), Mentawai, Kubu, Bataks, Java, Bali, Minahasa, Toraja, Boogie, Athoni, Leti, Moa, Lacor, Tobelo, Loda, Sangihe Islands, Negrito Luzon, Lisu, Chinese (province not specified), Chinese (Shandong), Serbs, Bulgarians, Luzhitans, Poles, Czechs, (Armenians), Potauatomi, Seneca (and Onondaga?) , delaware, teton, shawnee, vintu, chontal, wanca.

(Wed. North Africa. Ancient Egypt: D. Mallet, Le culte de Neit á Saïs, p.8, 178 in Briffault 1927 (2) [moon goddess Nate invented weaving and was depicted with a spindle]: 625) {Nate is not just the goddess of the moon and there is no reason to consider it a moon spinner}.

Western Europe. Wallons [daughter promised her mother to return from dancing before midnight; midnight passed, her mother went looking for her, saw her in the moonlight; "To hell with the moon! the daughter exclaimed and found herself on the moon; she is now visible, she is spinning there; or the mother herself wanted the naughty daughter to be on the moon; she is now visible there with a spinning wheel]: Sébillot 1904:17-18; the British [the spinner girl was moved to the moon (John Byly, drama "La Femme de la Lune", 1597]: Krappe 1938:120; Germans: Grimm 1883 (2) [on Sunday, a woman was spinning, now visible on the moon with spindle]: 718; Krauss 1890 (Swabia) [a spinner can be seen on the moon]: 13; Germans (Rügen Island) [you can see a woman spinning in the sun; she is placed there as punishment for spinning on Sunday]: Haas 1903, No. 158:146; Germans (Mecklenburg) [there is a woman spinning in the sun]: Bartsch 1880:198; Germans (Upper Palatinate): Schönwerth 1858, No. 3 [the maid was loaded with work, she forced to spin at night; A month, tired of quarreling with his wife, the Sun, took the girl to her place and now she is a Moon Spinner; if the tow ends and the girl stops spinning, the world will end; eclipses of the moon occur when a spinner gets tired, her hair hangs and covers the moon; an eclipse lasts longer if she accidentally harnesses her hair with her tow], 6 [on the moon, an old woman weaves a basket and the dog waits nearby; seeing that the work is nearing completion, the dog tears up the basket; if the old woman finishes it, the world will end]: 59-61, 70.

Australia. Aranda, loritya [Strelow 1907; arrernte {=aranda} believe that during the eclipse, the Moon man covers his face with opossum fur, which he constantly spins; the loritya explain solar eclipses in the same way]: Hamacher 2011:140.

Melanesia. San Cristobal [an old woman can be seen weaving mats on the moon]: Coombe 1911:240

Micronesia-Polynesia. Gilbert (Tabiteuea Atoll) [two women lived on the moon, Nei Nibarara and Nei Matanoko; NN always weaved mats; NM was blind and evaporated palm juice in coconut vessels; once noticed that one of the vessels was empty; caught NN's hand, who secretly took the juice; angry, drove her away and was left alone on the moon]: Koch 1966:32; Tuvalu [leaving a five-year-old girl, mother tells her father not to show her the sun; the girl cries continuously, stops when her father takes her out into the sun, then cries again; her father takes her to the eastern horizon, cuts off her tentacles along the way an octopus grabbing a boat; a boat waits at the cliff on which the Sun comes before its journey across the sky; The sun is too hot, advises to go to the Month; the month takes the girl; since then she has been visible on it, weaving mats]: Luomala 1973:265-266; Banaba [when Nei Matonoko was five years old, her mother Nei Komake warned her husband Na Utonga not to leave her in the sun; NM is crying continuously, calms down only when her father takes her out into the sun; then cries again; NC tells her husband to take her daughter to the Sun and Moon; NU's helper spirit tells him to take his daughter to the remote island of Nabenabe first; N., in turn, turns to Te-anti-ma-aomata; T. tells NU to make a boat with 17 sails, lists what to take with him; NU, T. and his daughter sail east; NU cuts off the tentacles of the person who grabbed the boat octopus; they sail to the island of big-eared people, to two more islands; to the land of Maiawa, where the sea is bounding the sea, and there is no end of the earth to the north and ke south; there is a rock in the sea, on which the Sun rests, Coming out of the east; the Sun told me to give their granddaughter to the Moon, for the heat of the Sun would burn her; they swam to the rock where the Moon is resting; the moon took her and since then she has been sitting on the moon weaving mats; Well, with T. went to see the heavens; there people want to kill strangers; NU was told to climb a tree; his assistant spirit advised them to take a Teslo; they killed a centipede living in the trunk; people were frightened, WELL, calmly returned home]: Luomala 1973:265-266; Samoa [Sina was doing a tapa; the moon that rose looked like a breadfruit; she called her down for her child to bite off a piece; furious The moon grabbed S. with her child, carried it away; on the full moon, S., her child's face, and a tapa board and beater are visible on the moon]: Turner 1861:203 in Williamson 1933 (1): 100; Tonga [spots on the moon are compared to bent down woman knocking out a tapa]: Williamson 1933 (1): 102; Hawaii: Beckwith 1970 (Fr. Maui) [Hina was doing tapa, she was tired, she took a calebas with her possessions, climbed the rainbow, heading first to the sun; it was hot, she stayed on the moon, you can see a calebas next to her]: 220-221; Putilov 1990 [(sources are not specified, apparently a prefabricated version); Hina has been doing tapa all her life, tired; she climbed the rainbow into the sky beyond the clouds, it was hot, she slipped to the ground; in the evening her husband returned from the spring with a calebasa, scolded H.; she climbed to the moon along the lunar path; now visible there; next to a calebass or a tapa mallet; clouds around the moon - tapa prepared by Hina]: 594- 595; Mangaia (Southern Cook Islands) [Ina (corresponding to Hina, Sina) is the eldest of four daughters of Kui Blind; Marima (Month) went down, married her; the lunar disk shows her ticks from A split coconut branch is corrected by the fire in the oven; it makes a tapa (clouds), spreading it to dry in the sky and pressing it down with stones; from time to time she throws away these stones, then thunder sounds; lightning flashes when she collects rolls of shiny tapas]: Gill 1876:46-56 (brief retelling in Williamson 1933 (1): 102; in Dixon 1916:88); Tahiti: Beckwith 1970 [on the moon you can see a woman doing tapu; she watches from the moon for those who travel in the night and those who make tapa for the gods; one night she stepped on the moon, so her name is Hina, who stepped on the moon; stepping from growing to to the banyan moon, she broke off a branch that sailed to Opoa and gave rise to a local tree there]: 221; Henry 1928 [{apparently only this is the original source}; Hina swam to the moon when it was low and stepped on it and she stayed; her boat was gone; the spots on the moon were a banyan, from which H. rips off the bark to make a tapa; a bright spot was a broken branch that fell to the ground and all the banyans were from it; with H. there was a turtle, she brought fig seeds to earth]: 462-464; Williamson 1933 (1) [Tangaroa, Ra are identified with the Sun; Hina with the Moon; spots on the moon are a grove of trees in the shade of which H. teaches how to make tapas]: 98-99; island Easter [Renga woman has a daughter, Nuahine, she is in her first period, her mother brings her food to the cave; on a full moon she goes swimming, sees a young man; this is the Month, the brother of the Sun; she agrees to marry him; he raises it to the moon; it is immortal there, but old; spins the threads of people's fate; when the thread breaks, a person dies; you can't look at the full moon]: Fedorova 1978, No. 6.1:76-78.

South Asia. Gujarati [an old woman can be seen spinning her hair on the moon, and a goat nearby; if goat droppings fall to the ground, the dead will come to life]: Enthoven 1924:50; hoodies [an old woman is visible on the moon spinning, or (common Hindu tradition) is a dhoti (tissue around the thighs that men wrap) that her husband threw into the moon after learning of her infidelity]: Fuchs 1950:286; lambadi (banjara) [spots on the moon: wood or old woman spinning cotton under a banyan]: Vahia et al. 2019:56; Punjabi [spots on the moon - the spindle of the prophet's daughter]: Ullah 1959:166; Uttar Pradesh (Faizabad) [children are taught call the moon mámú (maternal uncle); dark spots are a spinning old woman with a spindle]: Crooke 1894:8 (=Crooke 1891-1893, No. 858:135); Fuchs 1950:286; Bengalis Hindus (Sylhet) [on the moon an old woman with a spindle is visible]: Bhattacharya 1930:118.

Malaysia-Indonesia. Malays [you can see a banyan tree on the moon, under it a humpback old man weaves a forest from his bast, where he is going to catch everyone on earth; the rat constantly gnaws on the rope and the hunchback cannot finish his work; If finished, the world would end]: Skeat, Blagden 1900:13; temuan: Skeat, Blagden 1906 (mantra) [ideas about spots on the moon are close to Malay; on the moon Banyan, under him old man Moyang-Bertang weaves rope loops to catch people with them; mice gnaw through the rope; the Moon is this man's wife]: 319-320; Schebesta 1925 [there is an image of a "moon grandmother" spinning a thread to catch people]: 1129; Cuba: Schebesta 1925 [there is an image of a "moon grandmother" spinning a thread to catch people]: 1129; 1928 [an old woman on the moon spins a thread to catch people on the ground with it; a white mouse constantly gnaws at the thread and it does not reach the ground]: 244; bataks [Batara Guru created the sky, and his daughter Si Deak Paroudjar created the earth; she is on the moon, spinning there]: Backer 1874:278; Java [you can see sitting on the moon on a poultry tree making snare]: Bastian in Krappe 1938:120; Bali [figure {original material not specified} in connection with a retelling of the Balinese version of the myth about Rahu's attempt to drink amrita when Vishnu his head was cut off and Rahu's head began to swallow the sun and moon from time to time; a head with a grinned mouth, palms extending away from it; four fingers clenched and directed horizontally, the thumb finger down; fangs in the upper and lower jaw in the mouth; teeth are visible only in the upper jaw; Kala Rahu holds the edge of the moon with them, shown in the form of a fox, inside which is a woman with high hair and naked chest sitting at a spinning wheel]: Covarrubias 1956:299; minahasa, toraja, boogie, tobelo, loda, Sangihe Islands (the narrated text refers to another group, no link; groups with similar texts are listed) [white cat drinks from a pot who served as a household hunter; gives birth to a girl Nini-anteh; when she is seven years old, the hunter takes his wife; in his absence, she treats N. and the cat badly, does not feed them; N. goes to the river, climbs a tree, it grows almost to the moon, from there a ladder descends; the hunter followed him, the stairs were not lowered , it fell off, crashed; now you can see Nini-anteh on the moon behind a spinning wheel with a cat]: Dixon 1916:238-239; atoni [Be Koae weaver sits on the moon under a banyan; it has two branches, one tied to a black one pig trying to escape, earthquakes happen]: Maaβ 1933:276; Fly, Moa, Lacor [there is a woman spinning on the moon]: Schmidt 1910:92 in Nutz 1959:129.

Taiwan - Philippines. Negrito Luzon [a man is seen on the moon weaving a snare to catch a spirit causing an eclipse]: Garvan 1963:208.

China - Korea. Fox: Zapadova 1977 [=Assault 1990:470-474; the old woman tells her daughter and daughter-in-law to sow jute, gives her daughter-in-law roasted seeds to punish later; the daughter tastes the seeds, asks for a change ; without waiting for the shoots, he leaves with the bear; brings her husband to his mother; she hits him with a club when he eats with the pigs; the bear replies that it is good that his mother-in-law did not hit him on the nose; she hits the nose, the bear dies; the daughter grieves, the mother leaves her to weave under a tree by the spring; the Sun, then the Moon comes to drink; the moon says that the bear's widow will be better on the moon than on earth; she asks for permission to take a tree and a spinning wheel with you; you can see a spinner under a tree on the moon]: 149-153; Dessaint, Ngwâma 1994 [an orphan girl and her younger brother live with her grandmother; they went to chase birds to the plot; someone is mimicking them words; grandmother does not believe, she goes by herself; she is not mimicked; children: tease so that the grandmother believes; now someone repeats her grandmother's words; the cannibal t'ishüma appears; invites the grandmother to look in her head; she takes ticks out ticks from the cannibal's head; the cannibal - the brain, ate the grandmother; the children saw it, ran home, locked themselves; the cannibal comes disguised as a grandmother; the girl says many times that her grandmother has everything looks different; the cannibal consistently changes her teeth, cuts off her long breasts, etc., dresses; girl: grandmother came carrying a trough; cannibal with a trough; this time the boy said the formula allowing her to open the door; pretending to be a grandmother, the cannibal sends the children to get water, then for fuel; the girl brings dirty water, raw branches, the boy brings clean, dry; at night, the cannibal takes him to herself; ate, crunches her bones, supposedly a crunch of magic beans that give immortality, which she chews; first the cannibal gives the girl beans, then her brother's finger; in the morning asks where to relieve her need; girl rejects all places (her mother or father did something there); you have to go to the mountain, she will let the ball down the mountain, where the thread runs out, relieve herself; and then wind the ball back; the girl tied the thread to a tree, ran home, found her brother's guts, wrapped it in cloth, took it with her, hid under the bridge; then climbed a tree; peed herself; the cannibal thought it was raining; the girl laughed; the cannibal: how climbed? legs forward; the cannibal climbs; not like this: throw your legs around your neck; then: bring my father's spear, hot in the fire, knock down the fruits for you, throw it in your mouth, open it wider; throw the spear, missed; bring a spear my grandfather with two points; the same; great-grandfather: with three points; the spear fell into the mouth of the cannibal, she died; the flood began; the girl consistently asks for deer, dogs, hunters, bushes, knife, leaves, people who carry meat, flies to drink water; everyone refuses, is busy with each other (cumulative story); a frog drinks for a promise to give her a needle; the girl pierced her stomach with this needle, the water spilled out again; the same is another frog, but the girl pierced her back; since then, the frogs have a stain behind them; the girl got off the tree, began to pick up the rest of the yarn that the women had thrown, began to weave them; the moon came down She does not know how to drink from the stream; girl: sideways; the grateful moon took her along with the tree under which she was sitting; you can see her weaving on the moon; if only half of the moon is visible, she drinks; people are mortal, for Can't eat magic beans anymore]: 409-426; Chinese (Shandong, Wu. Linshu) [the moon shone brighter than the sun; it was nintagonal and octagonal, and when it came out, people's faces turned red because of the heat, and the crops dried up, it became impossible to live; a couple lived in one village hunters - his wife's name was Nie and her husband was Yala; Nie invited her husband to shoot the moon and advised her to climb to the top of the mountain in the morning to get to the moon; Yala shot at the moon all morning, but could not hit; but then the mountain split behind him, and a long-bearded old man appeared and said that an arrow from deer antlers from the Southern Mountains and a bowstring from the North Sea tiger's tail were needed; then the mountain closed again and the old man disappeared; his wife sent Yal to get these animals, but he replied that the animals were ancient and their skins were strong so that the arrow would not pierce them; we needed to weave a net; Nie offered to weave a net from her hair; a month later, the couple weaved a net, caught a tiger and a deer, and made an arrow and bowstring; Yala shot the moon again; the arrow cut off nine corners and eight faces from the moon, so that it became round, but her heat did not decrease; then Yala invited his wife to take a piece of silk, tie it to an arrow and thus cover the moon with it; Nie had just finished weaving a silk cloth depicting a Reevesia tree pubescens Mast.), a white hare and a herd of white sheep; Yala took him, tied him to an arrow, shot him and covered the moon with it; this is how a rivsia tree appeared on the moon, and under it a white hare and white rams; when the moon went up to the sky, Nie looked at her and suddenly flew there; Yala ran after her from the eastern mountains to the western mountains, but could not catch her and cried; Nie hung her hair and Yala climbed upstairs; from then Since the couple began to live happily ever after on the moon; Nie weaves, and Yala herds a white hare and white sheep; people on earth do not suffer from the heat]: Zhou Yang et al. 2007, No. 6:6-7; Chinese (the province is not indicated; from the magazine "Minjian Wenxue" ("Folklore"), 1958, No. 9, Appendix, etiological legends) [there was no cotton for making clothes and oil for lamps; brother goes to the elder on Mount Yunti ask him to talk to the moon so that it shines brighter every night; the old man says that the moon should wash his face sometimes, instead turns the young man into a tung tree, from which oil is obtained; goes sister - made with cotton; their father comes, the old man gives him tung and cotton seeds for people to light lamps and make clothes; the father of a boy and a girl, a tung tree and a fairy cotton bush moved to the moon; an old man is visible on the moon weaving bamboo baskets]: Bystrov et al. 1962:236-240.

The Balkans. Serbs [a girl was spinning on Saturday evening, a month took her home, she can be seen there behind a spinning wheel]: Janković 1951:109; Bulgarians [a girl cursed by her mother spins a tow on the moon]: Gura 2004:151 , =2010:38; Bulgarians (or Serbs) [on the moon you can see Wednesday (or Saturday, Sunday) sitting at the spinning wheel; the girl was spinning on Sunday evening, the moon took her, now she is visible there; the web in Indian summer is the threads she spins]: Krauss 1890:13

Central Europe. Poles, Czechs (Moravia) [Sibilla (Sibilla, Sibelija) sits on the moon and sews a shirt; she makes one stitch every day; when she finishes sewing, doomsday will come]: Gura 2006:464; Luzhitans [by Afanasiev 1994:275; Kuchta 1926:46; on the moon a woman spins a thread; in August she falls to the ground with a web]: Gura 2004:151, =2010:38; Poles [on the moon a woman who weaves or spins , she worked on a holiday]: Gura 2004:151.

(Wed. Caucasus - Asia Minor. Armenians [the woman knitted socks for her son, asked the Sun to wait to go down; the Sun later returned to her mother; she told the woman's son to die every day, to resurrect at night, and her mother all her life knit and untie socks; the son comes to his mother at night, asks for socks; the mother knits, her yarn blooms; the son walks barefoot]: Ganalanyan 1979, No. 353:130).

The Midwest. Potauatomi [an old woman on the moon weaves a basket and when she is done, the world will end, but the dog ruins the work every time, preventing it from finishing; when an old woman fights with her dog, an eclipse occurs ]: Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France VI, p. 149 in Lasch 1900:104 in Krappe 1938:121.

Northeast. Iroquois (the band is not a decree.) [the old woman was transported to the moon because she could not predict when the world would end; you can see her weaving a strap on the moon to carry a load behind her back; once a month she gets up to prevent the porridge that is being cooked; at this time, a cat nearby is unweaving; the old woman will not be able to finish the job until the end of time]: Smith 1883:81; seneca [a woman is sitting on the moon embroidering a porcupine with needles; next to her a pot is on fire; whenever she gets up to stop the brew, the dog sitting next to her dissolves her handicrafts; if she finishes embroidering, the world will end]: Curtin 2001:508; seneca (or onondaga) [young man Dehaehyowe leads 28 young volunteers to sunset to scrape unknown people; many months go by killing people; a half-tree giant tells them to stop killing , otherwise they would die themselves; they agreed; when they reached the big lake, they walked across the surface of the waters; on the opposite bank they saw the sky rise and fall; flocks of pigeons flew in from the world beyond from the corner of the sky, they went back; by this time 5 were alive; they hid the scalps they were carrying, four slipped under the edge of the sky, the fifth was crushed; in the country beyond the edge of the sky, the trees are beautiful their flowers give off a bright light that illuminates the whole country; local people play lacros; one plays rude, the chief throws his head into a tree as punishment while playing, his body pierces the trunk, the head is visible from on the other hand; after the game, the chief releases the offender; each of the four visitors is dismantled, washed the bones, reassembled, the bodies become strong and light; the hostess of the house (later admits that she is Luna) weaves a cape out of human hair; as soon as she is away, her dog unweaves everything; later Luna says that every person who dies gets one hair to her; when everyone dies and new the hairs will stop appearing, she will finish the cape; local people (these are Thunders) come, they do not eat food, but the smell that comes from it (exhausions); the hostess puts corn and pumpkin seeds in the ash, right there sprout, bear fruit; one of the people accidentally fires an arrow into the pond; when they return, the owners smell game; go to this body of water, kill the terrible enemy Great Blue Lizard with lightning; grateful to people for helping them find it; people see the ground below; there is a thunderstorm, a downpour; people see the Thunders drive and kill a huge horned serpent with lightning; horned snakes live underground; they will go to the ground at the end of the world; the heavenly leader tells the Thunders to rest, half of his body is made of ice; every day (i.e. year) turns one (winter) and then the other (summer) half of his body; the Thunders fight with a monster, for people it is a squirrel; people easily kill it, give the skin to the grateful mistress of the house; one of the visitors agrees to become a thunder named Thaw, or Warm Spring Wind; for this purpose he is pushed into mortar; people visit the village of the dead, it is impossible to talk to them; they visit the house of the Male Sun; in the spring they go down to earth, but the place where the village was covered with forest; they find a village, only an old woman I heard from my grandmother how people followed the path of the Sun as a child; D. and his two companions talk about what they saw]: Hewitt 1928:792-806 (=Curtin, Hewitt 1918, No. 119:607-632); delaware [woman, y which has only one grain of corn, weaves a basket; mice gnaw it overnight; if a woman finishes the basket, the world will die]: Bierhorst 1995, No. 201:74.

Plains. White River [an old woman in a cave embroiders a bison skin cape with porcupine needles; from time to time she gets up to prevent a brew of berries boiling on fire; every time her dog pulls out the needles; if she manages to finish the embroidery, the world will end]: Erdoes, Ortiz 1984:485-486

Southeast USA. Shawnee [Our Grandmother weaves a basket in heaven; at night her dog (at Shawnee Chiroki: with her grandson) will unweave what she has done in the day; one day she will finish her work, put the righteous in the basket will destroy the world, populate the new one with people from the basket]: Voegelin 1936:21.

California. Screw [Frog can be seen weaving basket on the moon]: Voegelin 1942:236.

Mesoamerica Chontal [Luna is the twin sister and wife of the Sun; the lunar disk shows the silhouette of a woman Ish Bolom sitting at a loom]: Vásquez Dávila, Hipólito Hernández 1994:152.

The Central Andes. Wanka [the chief brings the prisoner out of the campaign; he is killed by a condor; people want to kill a woman, but the priest says the chief loved her; the woman spins bright threads that the wanka does not use; another the girl agrees to learn her art; the woman explains that she has two suitors, the Wind and the Rainbow; she likes the Rainbow better, she is going to marry it; the wind grabs her, carries her to the moon; she can be seen there with a spindle in her hands, spinning bright threads; a girl goes to another village to teach people; wanka continues to use only dark-colored threads]: Villanes Cairo 1978:137-142.