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"The Moon is made of green cheese" is a statement referring to a fanciful belief that the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...
is composed of
cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During productio ...
. In its original formulation as a proverb and
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
for credulity with roots in fable, this refers to the perception of a simpleton who sees a reflection of the Moon in water and mistakes it for a round cheese wheel. It is widespread as a folkloric motif among many of the world's cultures, and the notion has also found its way into children's
folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging fr ...
and modern popular culture. The phrase "
green cheese Green cheese is a fresh cheese that has not thoroughly dried nor aged, which is white in color and usually round in shape. The '' Oxford English Dictionary'' gives a reference from the year 1542 of the four sorts of cheese. The first sort is green ...
" in the common version of this proverb (sometimes "
cream cheese Cream cheese is a soft, usually mild-tasting fresh cheese made from milk and cream.Oxford English Dictionary Stabilizers such as carob bean gum and carrageenan are often added in industrial production. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration de ...
" is used), may refer to a young, unripe cheese or to cheese with a greenish tint. There was never an actual historical popular belief that the Moon is made of green cheese (''cf.''
Flat Earth The flat-Earth model is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat-Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period (5th century BC), th ...
and the
myth of the Flat Earth The myth of the flat Earth, or the flat earth error, is a modern historical misconception that European scholars and educated people during the Middle Ages believed the Earth to be flat. The earliest clear documentation of the idea of a sp ...
). It was typically used as an example of extreme credulity, a meaning that was clear and commonly understood as early as 1638.


Fable

There exists a family of stories, in
comparative mythology Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics.Littleton, p. 32 Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. For example, scholars have used ...
in diverse countries that concern a simpleton who sees a reflection of the Moon and mistakes it for a round cheese:


''The Wolf and the Fox'' story type

This folkloric motif is first recorded in literature during the
High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD 1500 ...
by the French rabbi
Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...
with a Rabbinic parable in his commentary weaving together three Biblical quotations given in the main text (including one on " sour grapes") into a reconstruction of some of the Talmudic
Rabbi Meir Rabbi Meir ( he, רַבִּי מֵאִיר) was a Jewish sage who lived in the time of the Mishnah. He was considered one of the greatest of the Tannaim of the fourth generation (139-163). He is the third most frequently mentioned sage in the Mishn ...
's supposed three hundred fox fables ("משלות שועלים", in later works "משלי שועלים"), in the tractate ''
Sanhedrin The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Aramaic: סַנְהֶדְרִין; Greek: , ''synedrion'', 'sitting together,' hence 'assembly' or 'council') was an assembly of either 23 or 71 elders (known as "rabbis" after the destruction of the Second Temple), a ...
'':
Rashi as the first literary reference may reflect the well-known
beast fable An animal tale or beast fable generally consists of a short story or poem in which animals talk. They may exhibit other anthropomorphic qualities as well, such as living in a human-like society. It is a traditional form of allegorical writing. An ...
tradition of
French folklore French folklore encompasses the fables, folklore, fairy tales and legends of the French people. In the Middle Ages Occitan literature - were songs, poetry and literature in Occitan in what is nowadays the South of France that originated in the poet ...
or a more obscure such tradition in
Jewish folklore Jewish folklore are legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of Judaism. Folktales are characterized by the presence of unusual personages, by the ...
(see also the tradition in
Berechiah ha-Nakdan Berechiah ben Natronai Krespia ha-Nakdan ( he, ברכיה בן נטרונאי הנקדן; ) was a Jewish exegete, ethical writer, grammarian, translator, poet, and philosopher. His best-known works are '' Mishlè Shu'alim'' ("Fox Fables") and '' ...
); the near-contemporary Iraqi rabbi
Hai Gaon Hai ben Sherira (Hebrew: האי/י בר שרירא) better known as Hai Gaon (Hebrew: האי/י גאון, חאיי גאון), was a medieval Jewish theologian, rabbi and scholar who served as Gaon of the Talmudic academy of Pumbedita during the ...
also reconstructed this Rabbi Meir tale, sharing some elements of Rashi's story, but with a lion caught in a trapping pit rather than a wolf in a well – however, Rashi may have actively "adapted contemporary /nowiki>French/nowiki> folklore to the /nowiki>T/nowiki>almudic passage", as was homiletically practiced in different Jewish communities. Though the tale itself is probably of non-Jewish European origin, Rashi's form and elements are likely closer to the original in oral folklore than the somewhat later variation recorded featuring
Reynard Reynard the Fox is a literary cycle of medieval allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. The first extant versions of the cycle date from the second half of the 12th century. The genre was popular throughout the Late Middle Ages, ...
. Rashi's version already includes the fox, the wolf, the
well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. Th ...
and the Moon that are seen in later versions. Petrus Alphonsi, a Spanish Jewish convert to Christianity, popularized this tale in Europe in his collection '' Disciplina Clericalis''. The variation featuring
Reynard Reynard the Fox is a literary cycle of medieval allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. The first extant versions of the cycle date from the second half of the 12th century. The genre was popular throughout the Late Middle Ages, ...
the Fox appeared soon after Petrus Alphonsi in the French classic ''Le Roman de Renart'' (as "Renart et Ysengrin dans le puits" in Branch IV); the Moon/cheese element is absent (it is replaced by a promise of Paradise at the bottom of the well), but such a version is alluded to in another part of the collection. This was the first Reynard tale to be adapted into English (as the Middle English "þe Vox and þe Wolf"), preceding Chaucer's "
The Nun's Priest's Tale "The Nun's Priest's Tale" (Middle English: ''The Nonnes Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen, Chauntecleer and Pertelote'') is one of ''The Canterbury Tales'' by the Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Composed in the 1390s, it is a beast fable ...
" and the much later work of
William Caxton William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer to be the first English retailer of printed books. His parentage a ...
. Later still, the Middle Scots The Fox, the Wolf and the Husbandman does include the Moon/cheese element. La Fontaine includes the story in the French classic compilation ''
Fables Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular mor ...
'' ("Le Loup et le Renard" in Book XI). The German tale of The Wolf and the Fox in Grimm replaces the well with a well-stocked cellar, where a newly satiated wolf is trapped and subject to the farmer's revenge, being now too overstuffed to escape through the exit. One of the facets of this morphology is grouped as "The Wolf Dives into the Water for Reflected Cheese" (Type 34) of the Aarne–Thompson classification of folktales, where the Moon's reflection is mistaken for cheese, in the section devoted to tales of The Clever Fox. It can also be grouped as "The Moon in the Well" (Type 1335A), in the section devoted to Stories about a Fool, referring to stories where the simpleton believes the Moon itself is a tangible object in the water.


Proverb

"The Moon is made of green cheese" was one of the most popular proverbs in 16th- and 17th-century English literature, and it was also in use after this time. It likely originated in this formulation in 1546, when '' The Proverbs of John Heywood'' claimed "the moon is made of a greene cheese." A common variation at that time was "to make one believe the Moon is made of green cheese" (''i.e.'', to hoax), as seen in
John Wilkins John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death. Wilkins is one of the ...
'book ''The Discovery of a World in the Moone''. In French, there is the proverb "''Il veut prendre la lune avec les dents''" ("He wants to take the moon with his teeth"), alluded to in Rabelais. The characterization is also common in stories of gothamites, including the
Moonrakers Moonrakers is the colloquial name for people from Wiltshire, a county in the West Country of England. Legend This name refers to a folk story set in the time when smuggling was a significant industry in rural England, with Wiltshire lying on th ...
of Wiltshire, who were said to have taken advantage of this trope, and the assumption of their own naivete, to hide their smuggling activities from government officials.


Childlore

A 1902 survey of childlore by psychologist
G. Stanley Hall Granville Stanley Hall (February 1, 1846 – April 24, 1924) was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on human life span development and evolutionary theory. Hall was the first president of the American Ps ...
in the United States found that though most young children were unsure of the Moon's composition, that it was made of cheese was the single most common explanation: Before that time, and since, the idea of the Moon actually being made of cheese has appeared as a humorous conceit in much of children's popular culture with astronomical themes (''cf.'' the
Man in the Moon In many cultures, several pareidolic images of a human face, head or body are recognized in the disc of the full moon; they are generally known as the Man in the Moon. The images are based on the appearance of the dark areas (known as lunar m ...
), and in adult references to it.


In epistemology

At the Science Writers' conference,
theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...
Sean M. Carroll explained why there was no need to "sample the moon to know it's not made of cheese." He said the hypothesis is " absurd", failing against our knowledge of the universe and, "This is not a proof, there is no metaphysical proof, like you can proof a statement in logic or math that the moon is not made of green cheese. But science nevertheless passes judgments on claims based on how well they fit in with the rest of our theoretical understanding."This hypothetical debateessentially a straw man proposal or
argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialecti ...
ignores completely the personal observation and collection of 382 kg (842 lb) of
moon rock Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth as ...
by Apollo program astronauts. Compare
Cromwell's rule Cromwell's rule, named by statistician Dennis Lindley, states that the use of prior probabilities of 1 ("the event will definitely occur") or 0 ("the event will definitely not occur") should be avoided, except when applied to statements that are ...
.
Notwithstanding this uncontrovertible argument, the harmonic signature of moon rock the seismic velocity at which
shockwave In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a med ...
s travel is said to be closer to green cheese than to any rock on earth. Dennis Lindley used the myth to help explain the necessity of
Cromwell's rule Cromwell's rule, named by statistician Dennis Lindley, states that the use of prior probabilities of 1 ("the event will definitely occur") or 0 ("the event will definitely not occur") should be avoided, except when applied to statements that are ...
in
Bayesian probability Bayesian probability is an interpretation of the concept of probability, in which, instead of frequency or propensity of some phenomenon, probability is interpreted as reasonable expectation representing a state of knowledge or as quantification o ...
: "In other words, if a decision-maker thinks something cannot be true and interprets this to mean it has zero probability, he will never be influenced by any data, which is surely absurd. So leave a little probability for the moon being made of green cheese; it can be as small as 1 in a million, but have it there since otherwise an army of astronauts returning with samples of the said cheese will leave you unmoved."


In pop culture

In
A Grand Day Out ''A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit'', later marketed as ''A Grand Day Out'', is a 1989 British stop-motion animated short film starring Wallace and Gromit. It was directed, co-written, and animated by Nick Park at the National Film and ...
, the plot hinges on Wallace and Gromit going to the Moon to gather cheese due to a lack of it at home on a
bank holiday A bank holiday is a national public holiday in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and the Crown Dependencies. The term refers to all public holidays in the United Kingdom, be they set out in statute, declared by royal proclamation or h ...
.


See also

* '' Cheese Factories on the Moon'' *
Cromwell's rule Cromwell's rule, named by statistician Dennis Lindley, states that the use of prior probabilities of 1 ("the event will definitely occur") or 0 ("the event will definitely not occur") should be avoided, except when applied to statements that are ...
*
Face value The face value, sometimes called nominal value, is the value of a coin, bond, stamp or paper money as printed on the coin, stamp or bill itself by the issuing authority. The face value of coins, stamps, or bill is usually its legal value. How ...
*
Giant impact hypothesis The giant-impact hypothesis, sometimes called the Big Splash, or the Theia Impact, suggests that the Moon formed from the ejecta of a collision between the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized planet, approximately 4.5 billion years ago, in the Hadean ...
for theories on the origin and make up of the Moon * History of cheese *
Ipse dixit ''Ipse dixit'' (Latin for "he said it himself") is an assertion without proof, or a dogmatic expression of opinion.Whitney, William Dwight. (1906)"''Ipse dixit''" ''The Century dictionary and cyclopedia,'' pp. 379–380; Westbrook, Robert B"Joh ...
—compare * Little Cheese (real name Chester Cheese), fictional character in the DC comic, featuring a type of cheese found on the Moon by an astronaut *
Man in the Moon In many cultures, several pareidolic images of a human face, head or body are recognized in the disc of the full moon; they are generally known as the Man in the Moon. The images are based on the appearance of the dark areas (known as lunar m ...
* Moon in fiction *
Moonrakers Moonrakers is the colloquial name for people from Wiltshire, a county in the West Country of England. Legend This name refers to a folk story set in the time when smuggling was a significant industry in rural England, with Wiltshire lying on th ...
of Wiltshire *
Olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quic ...
*
Skepticism Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
* Splitting of the Moon


References


Notes


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Moon Is Made of Green Cheese Moon myths English proverbs Cheese Metaphors referring to food and drink