INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
Now for a bit of a change, we’re doing something really cute - which is definitely not our usual bag, but I thought we needed something to lighten the mood after some pretty scary monsters over the last few weeks.
DESCRIPTION:
This week we’re looking at the wonderful creature, the Moon Rabbit from Chinese mythology! And yes, you heard me right, it’s called the Moon Rabbit - how cute is that.
The Moon Rabbit is described as exactly how it sounds, a rabbit that is usually white, that lives on the moon. It’s been described as wielding a mortar and pestle to make delicious mooncakes, medicine or mochi, depending on which mythology you go with - as this was not exclusive to Chinese myth, but spread throughout all of East Asia including Korea and Japan, with their own slight differences, but we’re going to stick to the original in this episode.
The Moon Rabbit is associated with the goddess Chang’e, who is the Chinese goddess of the moon, this is because the Moon Rabbit is her companion in the darkness of space. I’ll get into this later as to why she’s there, because it’s a fun and relevant story.
ORIGIN:
The origin of this creature was back in around 220 BC during a period of what's known as the Warring States, which was in an early anthology of Chinese poems called the Chu Ci. Within the story, it noted that there was both a toad and a hare on the Moon that ground up herbs for the gods. So important thing here is that it wasn’t considered a rabbit to begin with - as rabbits were not actually native to China til after this period, and they only had hares during this time - so it was originally a hare, rather than a bunny.
The bunny is not only called the Moon Rabbit however, during the Han Dynasty, poets started calling the bun, the Jade Hare or the Gold Hare. Now why is this, well I’ll tell ya;
So the actual origin is from the Buddhist Jataka tales. In this story, there’s a monkey, an otter, a jackal, and a rabbit who wanted to give charity in order to celebrate the full moon as they thought that if they did this, they would earn a brilliant reward. An old beggar came along, and asked them for food. Thinking this was the best time to get their great reward for being nice; all the animals went on a search for dinner. The monkey gathered fruits from the trees, the otter collected fish, the jackal found a lizard and a pot of milk-curd - however the rabbit was a bit stuck. The rabbit only knew how to eat grass, and knew that the man wouldn’t be able to eat this. So the rabbit instead offered its own body by throwing itself into a fire the man had prepared.
However, the rabbit was miraculously unharmed. The old man then revealed that he was Śakra, the Buddhist god of the heavens. He was so honoured by the rabbit’s sacrifice that he drew the rabbit on the Moon for the whole world to see. It is believed that when the rabbit jumped into the fire, it was engulfed in smoke - and this is why the dark imprint on the moon is still a smokey grey. The rabbit is believed to be a fully enlightened Buddhist because of this sacrifice, which is a fun fact.
So we know why the rabbit is on the moon - but why was Chang’e? Surely a goddess should be in the heavens somewhere rather than on the moon on her own with a bunny? Although, there’s definitely a very naughty pun in there about rabbits, ladies and alone time - but I’ll leave it with your imagination.
The story of Chang’e, she wasn’t always a goddess, she was just a very beautiful lady - and that for some reason, ten suns had risen together into the skies and burnt the earth up - causing devastation for crops and life for the people. Her husband, an archer called Houyi, took it upon himself to save the people and shot down nine of them, leaving just one Sun. As a reward, he was given an elixir of immortality - but didn’t want to be immortal without his lovely wife. However, while Houyi went out hunting, his apprentice Fengmeng broke into their house and tried to force Chang'e to give the elixir to him. Knowing that he would kill her and her husband otherwise, she took them instead of giving them to Fengmeng.
Once she was immortal, she flew up to the skies and passed the heavens, choosing the Moon so she could watch her beloved husband from afar. Once Houyi discovered what had happened, he was so devastated with guilt and longing that he made all of the cakes that Chang’e loved and took his own life. However, Chang’e, although fraught with sadness, met the Moon Rabbit and continues to make her cakes, most commonly moon cakes to commemorate her time on Earth and her husband’s memory. It’s a really sad story, but the other version is definitely more interesting.
In the older version of the story, Chang'e stole the elixir from Houyi, and drank it for herself. Then flew up to the Moon so that her husband could not follow her, and she could live in exile, but safely for the rest of her days. The Chang’e story kind of goes off on a tangent here from the original subject, but that’s why Chang’e and the Moon Rabbit are linked, as they’re bakers in the sky together, and rabbits therefore, are sacred to Chang’e in China.
There are similar myths elsewhere though, and actually across the world. In some Aztec legends, the god Quetzalcoatl, the god of the wind and rain, basically becomes the beggar in this story and had the same experience with a self-sacrificing rabbit. As he lifted the rabbit up to the sky, apparently he said; "You may be just a rabbit, but everyone will remember you; there is your image in light, for all people and for all times."
The real life comparison to this one is looking us right in the face - you can look up at the moon or at pictures of it and see the shape of a rabbit holding a pestle and mortar according to meteorologists and believers I guess. But I’m not usually someone who goes for this, but there is very much a bunny shape there in the shade of the moon - so go figure.
Also, due to these lovely myths - the Chinese lunar rover that was sent up in 2013 was named after the Moon Rabbit with its proper Chinese name, Yutu. It was followed in 2019 by Yutu-2 and sat on the far side of the moon in the shadow of the bunny.
There is quite a funny reference in western space travel too. There was a joke told on the Apollo 11 mission between NASA mission control and the crew which went like this;
Houston: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, is one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-E has been living there for 4,000 years. It seems she was banished to the Moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported.
Michael Collins: Okay. We'll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Now onto cultural significance, for art this week, most of the illustrations of this are from story books and so some of the illustrators names have been lost over time. But I can tell you where to find them; there’s a lovely depiction in One Hundred Aspects of the Moon and if you look up Moon Rabbit silk dress - you’ll also find one of the most famous depictions of the Moon Rabbit in embroidery. Otherwise, have a look at independent stuff - there’s some really good stuff going round.
For movies, we’ve only got a few - Over the Moon is the big one here. It’s an animated Netflix movie that came out in 2020, about Chang’e, and how she got up there on that big hunk of rock that looks over us here on Earth. The Moon Rabbit is the featured sidekick of our hero trying to return home to his beloved goddess - it’s on the UK Netflix at least, and I’m a real sucker for animated movies and I absolutely loved it, highly recommend. For other movies, there’s also The Happiness of the Katakuris and Pleasant Goat, and Big Big Wolf.
In TV, there are a few more than this like the following; Sailor Moon, Bojack Horseman, Looney Tunes, Dragon Ball Z, Phineas and Ferb, The Goodies and Ultraman Ace.
Lastly, for video games - there are loads! This includes Animal Crossing, Cookie Run, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2, Dark Cloud, Final Fantasy, Gaia Online, Maple Story, Persona 4, Rabbids Go Home, Smite, Touhou Project and my personal favorite is Pokemon.
My book recommendation of the week is Chinese Fairy Tales and Legends by Richard Wilhelm and Frederick H.Martens, which is a lovely book about all things Chinese myth which is just one of the best and most beautiful mythos.
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? Well with this one, it’s mythology but it’s also in space. And have we been to the Moon? Well, who knows - but I don’t think they’ve found any bunnies up there. It makes sense that the shape that we can see on the moon is the bunny, and a mythos comes with that - and I do definitely like it more than the man on the moon, however, a bunny on the moon? I don’t know.
I do love the idea of this one though, and the fact that there could just be a rabbit who is making mochi on the moon is a killer story and I wanna try one of his mooncakes. I actually really want to try one of these, apparently they’re delicious.
OUTRO:
Awh, that was so lovely - I really enjoyed the change this week, and although we are a monster podcast - so we’ll get back to the scarier ones next week, but it was a bit different and cute so deal with it. Let me have this one!
Next week, we’re staying on this side of the world and looking at the most famous demon from Japanese mythology - the terrifying Oni, who roam the land looking for their next victim and are super distinguishable by their fun masks. Come trampling in next Thursday to learn more about these monsters!
For now thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast, ya know if you feel like it.
Come join the fun and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.
But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.