Man in the Moon

"The Man in the Moon stayed up too late" by Alan Lee
Unknown
Man in the Moon
Biographical Information
Other names	Uolë Kúvion (Q), Ûl Cuvonweg (G)
Location	Mountains of the Moon, Moon
Affiliation	Folklore
Physical Description
Gender	Male
Hair colour	Silver beard
Clothing	Silver shoes and a pale gray mantle.
Gallery	Images of the Man in the Moon

The Man in the Moon was a character that exists within the folk-tales of the Shire-hobbits, the Númenóreans, and Gondorians.

History

The Man in the Moon of Middle-earth folklore may have his origins in the legend of Tilion the Maia.

The Númenóreans believed that the Man in the Moon, like Ûrî, was a guardian spirit and named him Nîlû.

According to Middle-earth folklore, the Man in the Moon had silver shoes and a silver beard as well as a pale gray mantle. His girdlestead was said to be crowned with opals and pearls. He lived in a white minaret towering over the Mountains of the Moon. The tower was made out of diamonds and "tall moonstone" and had "an ivory door" that was unlockable with a "crystal key" that he possessed.

The Man in the Moon was featured in the song The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late, composed by Bilbo Baggins, as well as within The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon, a song derived from Gondorian lore.

Other versions of the legendarium

In The Book of Lost Tales Part One, the Man in the Moon was mentioned in the context of Elven lore as "an aged Elf with hoary locks" who secretly hid on the island of the Moon alongside the Valar and Maiar and tended to the Rose of Silpion and never slept. No other Elf among the Eldar ever learned of his experience since he never told anyone his tale. He also built "a little white turret" there which he occasionally climbed in order to look upon the heavens or the Earth. His proper name was Uolë Kúvion, though some unspecified people named him the Man in the Moon.

Christopher Tolkien mentions in his commentary that the "isolated heading ‘Uolë and Erinti’ in the little pocket-book used…for suggestions of stories to be told" implies that Tolkien may have considered writing a tale of how Uolë Kúvion came to live on the Moon, but never got around to writing it. A note in the same pocket-book refers to Uolë Kúvion as the King of the Moon while a second note describes a scenario in which Eriol would sing to the Elves a legend that Men have made about Uolë Kúvion. This song may be Tolkien's 1915 poem about the Man in the Moon.

His name in Qenya, Uolë Kúvion, as well as his name in Gnomish, Ûl Cuvonweg, both mean "Moonking" and the entry in the lexicon refers to him as "the Moon-elf". Tolkien originally write his Qenya name as Uolë Mikúmi, which also means "Moonking", but rejected this name.

Other writings

In Tolkien's Roverandom, the Man-in-the-Moon is the greatest of all magicians and lives within a white minaret on the moon with "an enormously long telescope". He has a moon-dog named Rover and when Rover comes to the moon, he renames him "Roverandom" to avoid confusing the two and gives him wings to play with the moon-dog. After staying in the moon and having many adventures, Roverandom is told by the Man-in-the-Moon that Artaxerxes had left and returned to Earth.

The Man-in-the-Moon appears also within the Letters from Father Christmas: In 1926, the North Polar Bear lit the northern lights causing the moon to break and the Man to fall into Father Christmas's hut, eating all of his chocolate before climbing back up to mend the moon and tidy up the stars. He visited Father Christmas in 1927. He didn't return until the next day because the "Wicked Bear" pushed him under a couch and he was forgotten about. Dragons had emerged on the moon and begun to obscure it in his absence, forcing him to unleash a powerful magic of freezing in order to repel them.

Inspiration

The Man in the Moon is a real-life tradition referring to a figure on the moon disc that appears like a face.