ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: A TRIP TO THE MOON BY MR. MURTAGH MCDERMOT (1728)

A TRIP TO THE MOON BY MR. MURTAGH MCDERMOT, CONTAINING OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE BY HIM (1728) – The real author of this is unknown, since it was published using the pen name Murtagh McDermot. Unless, of course, the writer used their real name for the main character.

McDermot, the story’s narrator, tells us he sailed from Dublin to the island of Tenerife. Once there he climbed to the top of Mount Teide where a massive windstorm carried him into outer space. He was able to breathe (hey, it’s 1728) but found himself trapped when he was equidistant from the Earth and the moon.

Murtagh tried maneuvering his body to break free but instead wound up moving a tiny bit closer to the moon, and the lunar gravity pulled him toward it. Luckily for him he landed in a lake on the moon, so he wasn’t killed.

Our narrator was rescued by an inhabitant of the moon, who was fishing at the lake. McDermot saw that the moon’s landscape was similar to that of the Earth and the beings who lived there, like his rescuer, were intelligent humanoid animals. Think Planet of the Apes if a variety of animals were featured, not just primates.

A few of the inhabitants were humanoid versions of animals that don’t exist on Earth, plus a few others were entirely human in form, but spoke with forked tongues. Those humans cooked a chemical solution for Murtagh which enabled him to understand and speak the lunar language.

He learned that he landed in the Kingdom of QuQus. The purely human moon beings were the most intelligent and occupied a higher caste than the humanoid animals, who may be intelligent but were feral enough to engage in animal-like behavior such as sniffing each other’s anuses upon meeting.

The pure humans were scientifically advanced in some ways. They had devised glass-like containers in which sunlight can be “trapped” to make permanent lanterns.

BALLADEER’S BLOG

Murtagh learned that the ancient scientist Pythagoras once visited the moon like he has. The lunar beings still displayed some of Pythagoras’ possessions in a quasi-museum. The moon beings took McDermot for an underwater ride in a submarine of sorts, in which breathing was accomplished by swigging air from flasks. 

Our narrator was taught about the life of the great moon being named Sactuff, who had provided most of their technology. He devised ways of draining color from objects to achieve invisibility, plus make bread out of hailstones and cakes out of snow. Transmuting metals was also pioneered by Sactuff.

Murtagh formed a friendship with a moon being named Tckbrff and the pair visited a neighboring kingdom. McDermot published his observations about the moon and Earth and his sentiments offended one of the elite pure humans. Ordered to leave the kingdom, the Irishman decided to try returning to Earth.

Our hero constructed what we would today call a launching pad and a spacecraft made from lunar wood and iron with a sand-like substance serving to cement it all together. Using the moon people’s version of gunpowder, Murtagh “took off” and flew back to the Earth.

The Irishman landed near Australia. He learned that the chemical solution he ingested on the moon enabled him to understand the language of birds like he understood the lunar language and he befriended a huge flock. He helped them fight off attacking birds of prey and the grateful animals aided him in returning to human civilization and ultimately back to Ireland, where he wrote this memoir.

A Trip to the Moon by Mr. Murtagh McDermot is just as much Jonathan Swift as it is proto-science fiction, especially with the way the ruling class speaks with forked tongues and how theater critics on the moon were monstrous creatures who bellowed harshly. It’s a fun read and can’t help but make you admire how such an imaginative piece was written way back in the 1720s.  

FOR MORE “ANCIENT” SCIENCE FICTION CLICK HERE.