Summary: Once upon a time a very long time ago, there was a young orphan boy of the Mountains Below who loved the moon and the stars more than anything else in the world…

Once upon a time a very long time ago, there was a young orphan boy of the Mountains Below who loved the moon and the stars more than anything else in the world.

The moon was his best friend – his guiding light in the darkness of the night that followed him wherever he went – and the stars were millions of candles – keeping him warm even on the coldest nights.

As an orphan, the young boy lived in an orphanage at the foot of the Mountains Below. Along with the other orphans, the boy lived there and learned there – receiving both shelter and education from the headmaster who was the owner of the orphanage.

The headmaster was not a cruel man, but he tolerated no nonsense and the boy’s absolute fascination and dedication to the moon and stars – celestial sky beings that, at the time, aroused nothing but feelings of superstition from even the most open-minded of people – caused him endless confusion and frustration.

Perhaps what was most frustrating was the fact that every night the moon came out, the boy would escape from the orphanage to have a ‘talk’ with it and would return to the orphanage only when the moon disappeared into the curtains of Dawn and Morning.

These nightly escapes greatly angered the headmaster who didn’t understand the boy and his fascination and relationship with the moon and stars and felt that the boy should be grateful to have shelter and education provided for him and that he was being disrespectful by running away at night.

One winter night, after one escape too many, the headmaster closed the heavy doors of the orphanage upon discovering that the young boy was once again missing from his bed.

Unable to return to the orphanage to take shelter from the bitter cold of winter night, the young boy was sure to freeze to his death, but the Moon, upon seeing what would happen to its most devoted companion, took pity on the boy and spirited him away to live with it up in the sky and amongst the stars.

The young boy would live within the moon for many years, growing strong and hale again, and when he reached his majority, he was able to separate himself from the moon and return to living on the earth… but on one condition.

Saved only by the grace and power of the moon, the boy – now known as the Man of the Moon – could venture no further from the moon than the tip top of the Mountains Below and so there he made his home and there he listened to the children who sang to him from the foot of the Mountains Below.