"The Moon is made of green cheese" is a statement referring to a fanciful belief that theMoon is composed ofcheese. In its original formulation as aproverb andmetaphor forcredulity with roots in fable, this refers to the perception of asimpleton who sees a reflection of the Moon in water and mistakes it for a round cheese wheel. It is widespread as afolkloric motif among many of the world's cultures, and the notion has also found its way into children'sfolklore and modern popular culture.
The phrase "green cheese" in the common version of this proverb (sometimes "cream cheese" is used),[1] may refer to a young, unripe cheese[2][3][4][5] or to cheese with a greenish tint.[6]
There was never an actual historical popular belief that the Moon is made of green cheese (cf.Flat Earth and themyth of the flat Earth).[A] It was typically used as an example of extreme credulity, a meaning that was clear and commonly understood as early as 1638.[9]
There exists a family of stories, incomparative mythology in diverse countries that concern asimpleton who sees a reflection of the Moon and mistakes it for a round cheese:
... theServian tale where the fox leads the wolf to believe the moon reflection in the water is a cheese and the wolf bursts in the attempt to drink up the water to get at the cheese; theZulu tale of the hyena that drops the bone to go after the moon reflection in the water; theGascon tale of the peasant watering hisass on a moonlight night. A cloud obscures the moon, and the peasant, thinking the ass has drunk the moon, kills the beast to recover the moon; theTurkish tale of theKhoja Nasru-'d-Din who thinks the moon has fallen into the well and gets a rope and chain with which to pull it out. In his efforts the rope breaks, and he falls back, but seeing the moon in the sky, praises Allah that the moon is safe; theScottish tale of the wolf fishing with his tail for the moon reflection;
— G. H. McKnight[10]
Thisfolkloric motif is first recorded in literature during theHigh Middle Ages by the French rabbiRashi with aRabbinic 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 TalmudicRabbi Meir's supposed three hundredfox fables in the tractateSanhedrin:[11]
A fox once craftily induced a wolf to go and join the Jews in theirSabbath preparations and share in their festivities. On his appearing in their midst the Jews fell upon him with sticks and beat him. He therefore came back determined to kill the fox. But the latter pleaded: 'It is no fault of mine that you were beaten, but they have a grudge against your father who once helped them in preparing their banquet and then consumed all the choice bits.' 'And was I beaten for the wrong done by my father?' cried the indignant wolf. 'Yes,' replied the fox, 'the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. However,' he continued, 'come with me and I will supply you with abundant food. He led him to a well which had a beam across it from either end of which hung a rope with a bucket attached. The fox entered the upper bucket and descended into the well whilst the lower one was drawn up. 'Where are you going?' asked the wolf. The fox, pointing to the cheese-like reflection of the moon, replied: 'Here is plenty of meat and cheese; get into the other bucket and come down at once.' The wolf did so, and as he descended, the fox was drawn up. 'And how am I to get out?' demanded the wolf. 'Ah' said the fox 'the righteous is delivered out of trouble and the wicked cometh in his stead. Is it not written,Just balances, just weights'?
Rashi as the first literary reference may reflect the well-knownbeast fable tradition ofFrench folklore, or a more obscure such tradition inJewish folklore as it appears inMishlè Shu'alim. The near-contemporary Iraqi rabbiHai Gaon also reconstructed this Rabbi Meir tale, sharing some elements of Rashi's story, but with a lion caught in atrapping pit rather than a wolf in a well. However, Rashi may have actively "adapted contemporary [French] folklore to the [T]almudic passage", as washomiletically practiced in different Jewish communities.[13] 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 featuringReynard. Rashi's version already includes the fox, the wolf, thewell and the Moon that are seen in later versions.Petrus Alphonsi, a Spanish Jewish convert to Christianity, popularized this tale in Europe in his collectionDisciplina Clericalis.[10]
The variation featuringReynard the Fox appeared soon after Petrus Alphonsi in the French classicLe 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" and the much later work ofWilliam Caxton.[10] Later still, the Middle ScotsThe Fox, the Wolf and the Husbandman does include the Moon/cheese element. La Fontaine includes the story in the French classic compilationFables ("Le Loup et le Renard" in Book XI). The German tale ofThe 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 theAarne–Thompson classification of folktales, where the Moon's reflection is mistaken for cheese, in the section devoted to tales ofThe Clever Fox. It can also be grouped as "The Moon in the Well" (Type 1335A), in the section devoted toStories about a Fool, referring to stories where the simpleton believes the Moon itself is a tangible object in the water.
"The Moon is made of green cheese" was one of the most popular proverbs in 16th- and 17th-century English literature,[14] and it was also in use after this time. It likely originated in this formulation in 1546, whenThe Proverbs of John Heywood claimed "the moon is made of a greene cheese."[B] A common variation at that time was "to make one believe the Moon is made of green cheese" (i.e., to hoax), as seen inJohn Wilkins' bookThe Discovery of a World in the Moone.[16]
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 inRabelais.[17]
The characterization is also common in stories ofgothamites, including theMoonrakers 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.[citation needed]
A 1902 survey ofchildlore by psychologistG. Stanley Hall 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:
Careful inquiry and reminiscence concerning the substance of the moon show that eighteen children [of 423], averaging five years, thought it made of cheese. Sometime the mice eat it horseshoe-shaped, or that it could be fed by throwing cheese up so clouds could catch it; or it was green because the man in the moon fed on green grass; its spots were mould; it was really green but looked yellow, because wrapped in yellow cheese cloth; it was cheese mixed with wax or with melted lava, which might be edible; there were many rats, mice and skippers there; it grew big from a starry speck of light by eating cheese.[18]
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. theMan in the Moon), and in adult references to it.
At theScience Writers' conference,theoretical physicistSean 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."[19][C] Notwithstanding this uncontrovertible argument, theseismic velocity at whichshockwaves travel in Moon rock is much lower than typical rocks on Earth, and coincidentally closer to that of cheese.[20]
Dennis Lindley used the myth to help explain the necessity ofCromwell's rule inBayesian probability: "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."[21]
In the 1989 filmA Grand Day Out, the plot hinges onWallace and Gromit going to the Moon to gather cheese due to a lack of it at home on abank holiday.
In the sayingto believe that the moon is made of green cheese ... it is not clear which sense ofgreen cheese is intended; the likely reference is to the mottled surface of the Moon, which might be likened to any of the senses.
You may as soon persuade some Country Peasants that the Moon is made of Green Cheese (as we say) as that 'tis bigger than his Cart-wheel.
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