Dear moon-dazzled reader,
We’re at the end of three days of a spectacular full moon, the penultimate one of 2023. I hope you got a good view of it at some point. Luckily, here in the West of Ireland, we’ve had clear skies, and it’s been so bright it has cast what I think of as ‘moon shadows’. I got up at 3am on Monday morning to get a drink of water and the moon’s icy spotlight illuminated the landscape in high contrast. I stood at my living room window and stared up at it, and yes, I whispered, ‘Hello, moon.’
The moon often draws me outside. I feel the need to observe it beyond the boundaries of my home, to witness its pale disc imprinted upon the darkness. I’m lucky to live in a part of the world with reduced light pollution, so it’s a marvellous sight. A breeze stirs the branches holding onto wizened leaves, a bat may flit by, or a distant owl might screech victory at making a kill. The night feels peaceful and yet ripe with potential. The moon is our peephole into a hidden world, illuminating what is often not easily glimpsed.
Many years ago I commented to a dear friend of mine that when looking at the moon it can bring to mind one of your pals, in another part of the world, who may be gazing upon that lunar surface as well. In a strange way it feels as if the moon connects you to that distant mate. I also noted that we don’t think that way about the sun. The sun is constant, and sure it may be hidden behind clouds at times, but we’re always aware of its presence. And when it’s out, swaggering in its brightest finery, you cannot evade it. It’s that’s person who follows you about, speaking at top volume, wearing you down, little by little. Sure, we love the sun, but sometimes we also need to hide from its braggadocio.
A full moon sits in opposition to the sun, and thus reflects and softens its light back to us at night. It’s an alchemical transformation: taking golden light and rendering it as silver. Softening its intensity and allowing us moments of perspective and insight.
This full moon is often referred to as the Beaver Moon, which is based on a naming system popularised by the Farmers’ Almanac, which is based out of Maine, in the USA, and began publication in the 1930s.
And now for a slight digression…
The original Old Farmer’s Almanac1, was created by Robert Bailey Thomas in 1792 (for the subsequent 1793 calendar year) in the USA. it remains in print and is also a popular web site. Each edition usually suggests planting schedules, recipes, astronomical tables, folklore and anecdotes about rural living. Pre-Internet, this was was considered a necessary purchase (in September) in most farming households. The Old Farmer’s Almanac subsequently took up this Moon-naming system. Since it was the most widespread Almanac in the USA, it popularised the list.
And to digress the digression… I feel beholden to mention that in 1765 The Irish Merlin, an almanack (with an extra k), was published for the first time, pseudonymously by Theophilus Moore. It would go on to be known as Old Moore’s Almanac, when it was no longer a problem in Ireland to produce a Catholic-owned publication (around 1793). It has been continuously in print since Moore set his star in motion. This topic might require its own Substack post!
Now to collapse the almanacial digression…
The titles of the moon are supposed to originate from the names Native Americans gave to the seasonal full moons, but which name from which people? The titles appear to be selected from a variety of nations.
But this desire to systemise the full moons pre-dates the Farmers’ Almanac. in 1897 the Camp Fire Club in America was created as a group for hunters, anglers, explorers and those who enjoyed nature and outdoor pursuits. It was eventually merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. One of its originators, the illustrator and writer Daniel Carter Beard, published a book in 1918 called The American boys' book of signs, signals and symbols.2 It contains a chapter on ‘Signs of the Seasons and Signs of Time’. Here, moon titles are suggested, and Beard admits that they ‘…naturally vary in the different parts of the country’. Since America is a massive continent, it’s unlikely that the weather in the South-East is going to match that of the North-West at any time of the year, so the names for the full moon were bound to differ depending on the experience in those locations.
Over time, these full moon lists began to settle into what has become the ‘traditional’ listing of full moon titles.
The above graphic comes from the Old Farmer’s Almanac, and I recommend reading through the page, because if you scroll down they offer a variety of titles for each month’s full moon.
It is suggested that the November full moon is alternatively known as: Deer Rutting Moon (Dakota, Lakota), Digging/Scratching Moon (Tlingit), Freezing Moon (Anishinaabe), Frost Moon (Cree, Assiniboine) or Whitefish Moon (Algonquin).
I live in Ireland, a temperate island off the coast of Europe, so these names don’t map exactly onto our experience3, although the spirit of many of them are similar. There were no beavers in Ireland, for instance, but we did have wolves, boar, bears and deer: our mythology is littered with stories about all of them.
Deer Rutting Moon would work here. I was once walking on my own through the shedding trees in Coole Park in Galway one cold November day, and I heard the most unearthly roaring. I froze in shock, wondering what strange creature could emit such a sound. Eventually, I remembered the deer enclosure in the park, and realised the Stag was romancing his ladies.
Some people might point to our ‘Ogham Tree Calendar’ as a good alternative. I won’t get too history nerdy, but the quick version is that the Ogham, as a script, only cropped up on stone monuments around the 5th Century in Ireland. Englishman Robert Graves, in his 1961 book, The White Goddess, mapped the Ogham onto a thirteen month calendar, probably influenced by the ‘druidic’ tradition that was re-imagined during the late Victorian era in England, which was part of a trend of creating, inventing and amalgamating spiritual traditions. This is a complicated knot to unpick, since much of this comes from a genuine yearning to revive a broken or interrupted indigenous human-land relationship. All that remains are echoes and intriguing details retold via the lens of conquering peoples.
What is best done in these circumstances is to come clean about your sources, and admit that what we have inherited is fragmentary and contradictory. Our Irish ancestors didn’t seem to care too much about precision.4 They were inventive storytellers, fond of exaggeration and embellishment. ‘Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?’, remains the adage of Irish people today. I often imagine our ancestors deliberately trying to bamboozle the shortsighted monks who were attempting to write down and make sense of that snake’s nest of stories. The monks corralled the tales as best they could, trying to force their new doctrines into the narratives, but they whipped around to bite the monks’ hands every now and again.
I love trying to understand the origins of things, but I also know that if you do anything twice it becomes a ‘tradition’ in any family or group of people. As long as you’re not trying to pass it off as authentic, or if you haven’t stolen something from a group and are attempting to pass it off as your great-grandma’s secret practices, then invented systems can become invested in useful meaning if they resonate with the way you conduct yourself in your environment. Just be upfront about it.
Generally, the ‘tree calendar’ claims that from November 25 to December 22 is ruled by Ruis (Elder). I won’t downplay the Elder, it’s a fine tree, but I can think of better representations for this time of the year.
‘Tis the season for gathering around fires, toasting your friends, and bringing brightness into our lives during the long nights. And having a quiet stroll afterwards under the jagged shadows cast by the moon’s mysterious light.
It always reminds me of Thin Lizzy’s fantastic song, ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’. For me, it evokes those early complicated feelings of love, awe and excitement. Our ever shifting moon is terrific symbol of those peaks (and lows).
Finally, I’m a guest at comic book convention, Suircon, in Waterford this coming weekend. Organised by Waterford Comics, it’s taking place at from 2 -3 of December 2023 in City Hall, The Mall, Waterford. Plenty of talented comic book writers and artists will attend the event, with workshops and panel discussions, vendors selling cool gear, cosplay competitions, demonstrations of collectible card games and even a J-Pop dance party!
I’ll be on a panel on Saturday with artist/director Paul Bolger and writer/musician Barry Devlin about creating coming book stories. I’m looking forward to it.
Wishing you all a happy end of November!
At first it was named the Farmer’s Almanac, but in 1832 Thomas inserted the world ‘Old’, to indicate its stately age, and that it had outlasted its competitors. Interestingly, the apostrophe didn’t shift, so this became Old Farmer’s Almanac, implying it was an almanac for an elderly agricultural worker.
It’s interesting to read through this book, although it is very much a product of its era.
Or the experiences of many other cultures around the world. This article by Gordon Johnston on the NASA web site discusses some other names for this month’s full moon in other places.
I’m making a generalisation here. I suspect they embedded core details that were considered essential, and wove a lot of extras around them to ensure the survival of the seed elements. But since they had no control over how the narrative was subsequently transmitted or re-fashioned, they spoke their stories and hoped for the best. It’s in the more scholarly Dindsenchas (‘lore of places’) that you can spot intriguing information.