It may not look like it on the surface, but at its core [2] this is a very big topic. If you think about it, apples have featured in one way or another in a vast body of religion, mythology, superstition, fables and folk wisdom.

I won’t try to tackle all of this in one post, that would be madness. However, over the next little while I hope to put a few articles up on ulblog exploring the interesting world of the apple.

But for now, let’s start with one of the stories that takes place at the beginning of everything.

In the beginning…

Most people reading this blog will be familiar with the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from The Garden Of Eden for eating the fruit of The Tree Of Knowledge.

In popular tradition, the fruit that was at the centre of humanity’s fall from grace is usually represented as our friend the apple, but did you know that the early writers of the Old Testament probably had another fruit in mind?

The Book Of Genesis never mentions the name of the fruit from which Adam and Eve ate, and while apples feature later in the Old Testament [3], Biblical scholars think that the fruit originally used to symbolise forbidden knowledge might more readily have been the fig, or grapes or one of several other more likely suspects [4].

It’s a bum wrap, see…

So why did the apple go on to become the fruit we all associate with the story of Adam and Eve?

Unfortunately, we don’t really know.

Some scholars suggest that it was simply the product of a rather obvious pun in Latin — the Latin word for apple is malum, while the Latin word for evil is malus [5]. So, it’s possible that the coincidental similarity between these two words made it easy for early Latin theologians to associate the fruit with the original sin [6] [7].

Other scholars have suggested that since the apple was a prized and often expensive fruit in the Mediterranean during the time in which Christianity was gaining ground and in which the Bible was being translated into European languages, it became natural to associate the irresistible temptation that led to humanity’s downfall with the rather delicious fruit.

The biggest eviction since last year’s Big Brother Finale!

We’ll probably never know exactly why the apple became intrinsically associated with the story of Adam and Eve and The Garden Of Eden.

Still, it’s kind of fun, when you’re biting into a juicy apple, to think about how this fruit went from being a law-abiding, upstanding member of the orchard, to being implicated in the greatest scandal the Old Testament ever knew, and all on hearsay evidence and faulty testimony!

The next post in this series will explore the ugly side of apples, in “The Bad Apple.”

Footnotes:

1.	It was a Pink Lady, in case you’re interested. Pink Ladies have a very tart flavour and are one of my favourite apple varieties.
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2.	Aha ahahahah, bad apple pun intended! …Sorry.
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3.	See Proverbs 25:12.
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4.	See The Straight Dope: Was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden an apple?
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5.	See Wikipedia.org: Apple.
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6.	See Wikipedia.org: Original sin.
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7.	You know, I can just see some Monk giggling away at dinner about this pun while all the other Monks sit around and think, “It’s even worse than all his, ‘Knock knock, who goeth there?’ jokes”.
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Here’s a few with which to sharpen your superstitious edges:

Scissors became an important object in household magic in much the same way keys and horseshoes did. They were thought to borrow from the power of the blacksmith – often considered to be a powerful individual in folkloric belief – and were prized items at a time when much craftsmanship went into manufacturing a pair.

And there you have it. Next time you pick up a pair of scissors, you might want to spare a thought for the fact that once they were considered to be items of considerable magical influence.

Do you know of any superstitions or household rituals relating to scissors? Share them with us via the submit a superstition link!

Footnotes:

1.	Anyone stuck in a relationship with me had better hope I don’t start believing this one, since I’m as clumsy as all hell [2].
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2.	eg: “<clatter> Aha! … Oh, I’m sorry, that’s just me being clum-<clatter> Aha! …” and so on.
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Imagine, for a moment, what it would have been like for the first sentient humans to look up at the night sky and to see the moon charting its way across the heavens. It must have been one of the great mysteries of existence, worthy of secrets and rituals, and later to become an object of worship and suspicion.

Across the centuries that separate then from now, we have believed many things about the moon. The Egyptians saw the moon as the god Thoth, who was responsible for giving humans the gift of writing. The Greeks worshiped the moon as the personification of Selene, and she was the sister of Helios, the sun god; and then later as Artemis, who was the virgin goddess of the hunt, as well as of healing and childbirth. To the Romans she was Diana, and she was as virginal and wild as Artemis, her Greek forebear. And to the Babylonians, the moon was Sin [1], and he was the god of wisdom, and eventually the creator of all things.

In those centuries and millenia, the moon has been a creator, protector, benefactor and guardian. But the moon also has a dark side [2], both literal and figurative, and the presence of a full moon hasn’t always been thought of as a blessing.

“Is it a full moon tonight?” someone asks, hanging up a phone.

“I don’t think so,” you reply. “Why?”

“Because that’s the third customer who’s yelled at me today for no good reason. It has to be a full moon!”

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Exactly at what point in human history it became common to believe that a full moon could affect our emotions and sanity remains a mystery that may well endure for the rest of time.

We know that we owe the English word ‘lunatic’ [3] to such a belief, and we can trace the word back through French and ultimately to Latin, where it was derived from the worship of the Roman goddess Luna, whose embodiment as the moon was thought to have an influence on mental stability.

We also know that in the folklore of recent centuries the full moon became invested with the power to force shapeshifters – people cursed to become creatures such as werewolves – to transform themselves into hideous monsters hungry for human blood, the ultimate embodiment of the loss of reason and sanity.

And we know that for hundreds of years a growing number of mystics, natural philosophers, scientists, and psychiatric professionals alike have searched for proof of a correlation between the full moon and the extremes of human behavior it has been thought to influence.

In Dark And Bright Of Moonlit Night

Of all the many and varied things we have believed about the moon, the conviction that it wields a sinister effect when it shines at its brightest has lingered longer than any other, and has in fact thrived to this very day.

And yet the question remains: is there any real justification to the belief that during the full moon suicide rates increase, assaults rise, hospital and psychiatric admissions soar, accidents abound, and people generally become more aggressive and unpredictable? Or is this simply a modern belief that hearkens back to a more superstitious time?

In an attempt to answer that very question, a number of studies have been conducted by researchers on either side of the ‘lunar effect’ debate, and reading any one of them, and the wealth of supporting statistics they include, you would be forgiven for believing largely whatever the author intended.

It’s only been in the last 10 or so years, however, that an effort has been made to go back to many of these studies to look at the methods they used and whether or not the results they produced can be considered reliable.

And the outcome? It seems that the most convincing arguments tell us that the full moon doesn’t have a noticeable effect on how we behave.

When The Full Moon Fades

Debate will almost certainly continue, and the future will hold more research studies, and even more contentious results.

But until some link between the full moon and our behavior can be demonstrated, we can explain the common belief in the ‘lunar effect’ in terms of how people tend to notice certain types of patterns.

In simple terms, it’s not a matter of the full moon making people behave in strange ways, but rather the fact that we notice these things more when the moon is full. Or, to put it another way, when we have a full moon we have an explanation for the unexpected or antisocial actions of others, and because we can match the one against the other, the fact that it’s a full moon feels significant. During other phases of the moon, we’d simply say, “Wow, that customer was a complete pain in the ass more annoying than Paris Hilton a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate that I love being yelled at!”, and we’d pretty much leave it at that.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, we only have a couple of weeks until the next full moon, and I need to make sure my health insurance is up to date and that I’ve replenished my supplies of shaving cream for the inevitable bout of hairiness…

Further reading

• Moonstruck! Does The Full Moon Influence Behavior?
• Full moon and lunar effects

Footnotes:

1.	Not the same connotation as the word ‘sin’ implies in English today.
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2.	Intriguingly and tragically enough, the first two women to be tried and executed for witchcraft [4] by the Inquisition were members of a Milanese cult devoted to the worship of Madonna Oriente, a moon goddess.
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3.	Which first appeared in Old English as the word ‘lunatyke’ at some point during the 14th century, and literally meant ‘moon-driven’ or ‘moonstruck’.
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4.	Although, the Inquisition had sentenced many to death for other forms of heresy before it turned its attention to witchcraft.
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