Moon Names
It keeps coming up, this time because I wrote a small note about the recent "harvest" moon: what are the names of the moons throughout the year? This seems to me about as important as the list of "official" birthstones, but at least these names for the moon's manifestation in different months does seem to have some history with Native Americans in the northern and eastern regions.
Here are the moon-names (generally referring to the full moon) and their months:
| Wolf Moon | January |
| Snow Moon | February |
| Worm Moon | March |
| Pink Moon | April |
| Flower Moon | May |
| Strawberry Moon | June |
| Buck Moon | July |
| Sturgeon Moon | August |
| Harvest Moon | September |
| Hunter's Moon | October |
| Beaver Moon | November |
| Cold Moon | December |
I've read, too, that the occasional second-moon in a month is called a "Blue Moon", except when it isn't. For the most part, the associations between the names in the table and their seasonal namesake is rather obvious, but there is more discussion at the Farmer's Almanac's "Full Moon Names and Their Meanings".
3 Responses
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Thursday, 1 November 2007 at 01.16
Permalink
Beaver Moon . . . wasn't she a late '70's porn star?
(Forgive me, I couldn't resist.)
on Thursday, 1 November 2007 at 11.40
Permalink
We had a case of a blue moon that maybe wasn't earlier this year. In some parts of the world there was a full moon on May 31, making it the second full moon that month, and hence a "blue moon." But in other parts of the world (like ours, for instance), the moon turned full on June 1, making the full moon on June 30 a "blue moon." Mind you, I wonder if there were places where that moon wasn't full until July 1, so that the full moon on July 30 was blue. In any case, at some point this summer, there were two full moons in a month, and hence a "blue moon."
on Friday, 2 November 2007 at 11.37
Permalink
SW, you're forgiven. Similar thoughts occurred to me, but they might have put my gay card in jeopardy if I had mentioned them.
Bill, I'm thinking about your idea that that blue moons might occur in different months. It certainly seems possible. An astronomical full moon happens at a precisely determinable time, and the moon might be visible at that time on both sides of the international date-line. Calendar full moons — it's necessary to have the circle on some date that may not be quite the astronomical full moon — make it seem even more likely. Now, how frequently that might occur is another matter altogether.