The Greek Gods

The Moon is Aurora's inspiration throughout her story of reawakening. Until now I have not given her a name, I have just called her The Moon. The Greeks had a name for the moon. She was a goddess who fell in love with a mortal earthling, naturally. Her name was Selene, the name of my best friend when I was young. So from now on I shall use that name in the story of Aurora.

In Aurora's tale the boy most beloved of The Moon, Selene, I simply called Moonchild. He was indeed her favourite, her nocturnal spiritualist who wandered in the woods and forests, who was at one with the animals and who was tragically misunderstood and abused by his parents and the rest of humankind. He was so lonely that he looked to her for protection and guidance. He bathed in her soft light and divined her inspired direction as guidance for his progress. I may have failed to mention that Moonchild was always to remain a boy. He will never grow up, so he is immortal.

This was a gift from Selene. The name given to Moonchild by the Greeks was Endymion. He was a beautiful boy who was both a hunter and a shepherd. He spent his nights guarding the sheep and watching the sky. These days we might describe him as an astronomer, such was his interest in and knowledge of the heavens. He was the first person to describe the phases of the moon. He is rumoured to have seduced his object of desire by laying on a white sheep skin that he cast upon a grassy slope one clear night. Selene was drawn to the white glow of the sheepskin and finding the beautiful, naked Endymion reclining there, she fell in love.

Endymion loved her so much that he never wanted to be parted from the silvery Selene, so he asked her to grant him one wish. He asked for eternal youth and immortality, though he would live the rest of his life asleep, communing with her only at night when his nocturnal world came alive beneath her soft rays.