A man once went hunting in the woods of Yellow Mountain (Berks County) during the last quarter of the moon. When he loaded his gun to shoot at a deer he saw, he hung his powder horn on a horn of the moon, not thinking it odd to be able to do so.
After he shot the deer, the moon had risen so high that he could not reach his horn anymore. He piled wood to stand on, but the moon kept rising out of his reach until his horn was gone.
As he came home, he told his neighbors and family about what happened, and they told him that his horn had been stolen by the Man in the Moon and suggested he talk to an elderly woman who lived in the woods.
The next day, he visited the old woman, who was adept in the magic of Hexerei. She advised him to return to that same spot on the night the new moon. He did so, and he found his powder horn next to the pile of wood he had stood on.
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Note: Several variants of this story have emerged from oral reports (numbering a total of 27) in Berks County (where Yellow Mountain was the most common setting) and Lehigh County (where most reports did not give a specific setting and two gave Allemengel as the location).
In a few reports, the moon was in the last waxing quarter and the horn dropped when the moon was full.
The Man in the Moon was named in most of the reports. In a few others, it was merely the action of the moon rising that caused the hunter not to be able to reach his powder horn. In one report, it was the placement of a horn (powder) onto a horn (moon) that caused the moon to get angry with the hunter and to keep the horn.
In seven of the reports, the hunter was not an honorable man, and the loss of the powder horn could be seen as a punishment.
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