Yutu the Moon Rabbit
We are watching Chang’E 3′s Moon Rover landing on the moon today.
The name Moon Rabbit was chosen from Chineses folklore and its interesting to note that many cultures have picked up this in their folklore;
An early mention that there is a rabbit on the Moon appears in the Chu Ci, a Western Han anthology of Chinese poems from theWarring States period, which notes that along with a toad, there is a rabbit on the Moon who constantly pounds herbs for theimmortals. This notion is supported by later texts, including the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era encyclopedia of the Song Dynasty. Han Dynasty poets call the rabbit on the Moon the “Jade Rabbit” (玉兔) or the “Gold Rabbit” (金兔), and these phrases were often used in place of the word for the Moon. A famous poet of the Tang Dynasty period, Li Bai, relates how: “The rabbit in the Moon pounds the medicine in vain” in his poem “The Old Dust.”
Its also interesting that in the abovementioned article that a image of a rabbit and a mortar are delineated on the moon which probably started these folklore tales.
