The Wayward

A Noldorin title for the Moon, from the Elvish Rána, referring to its unpredictable course through the sky. The name came from the supposed unreliability of Tilion, the hunter given the task of steering the Moon through the sky. He would wander from his appointed paths, at times staying longer beneath the Earth than he should, and at others straying so close to the Sun that the Moon's disc became temporarily scorched and darkened. This tale of the Waywardness of Rána perhaps forms a mythical explanation of the Moon's apparently erratic behaviour, being sometimes visible during daylight, and becoming more deeply shadowed the closer it lies to the Sun in the sky.