And while pondering on moon topics – over the years, many a parent has told an inquisitive child that moon is made of cheese and that child, when grown, has passed this onto their own children. This “legend” has ben passed down over many generations, but have you ever wondered why people say the moon is made of cheese (some even go as far as to say it is green cheese) or where this came from? Well if not, TPP is here to give you some theories about the origins of this to get your pondering gears going!
Today I Found Out tells us one theory:
It isn’t entirely clear who was the first to come up with the expression, but it became extremely common starting in the mid-16th century. The credit for the person to come up with the expression usually goes to famed French monk and scholar François Rabelais or English writer John Heywood.
Heywood first used it in The Proverbs of John Heywood written in 1546
Ye fetch circumquaques to make me believe,
Or thinke, that the moone is made of greene cheese.
And when ye have made me a lout in all these,
It seemeth ye would make me goe to bed at noone.So basically, the expression itself simply was used to refer to something so ludicrous that only the extremely gullible would believe it.
Today I Found Out
Another theory, according to Mental Floss:
Though the idea that the moon is made of cheese has been around for millennia, it’s doubtful that anyone ever actually believed it, at least not academically. The earliest record of this bizarre notion comes from a medieval Slavic fable in which a ravenous wolf chases a seemingly hapless fox, hoping to score an easy meal. The fox convinces his pursuer that the moon’s reflection on a nearby pond is actually a block of cheese floating on its surface and that the wolf must drink all of its water to acquire the tasty treat. Guzzling his way to the prize, the wolf eventually drinks too much and bursts, leaving the fox alive and victorious.
Mental Floss
Not that you have some theories as to where this has come from, your homework today is to ponder back in time to when you first heard someone say that the moon what made of cheese – how old were you, did you believe them and have you passed this onto anyone else, if so who?
Ponder away!
