October
Hunter’s Moon
Bare, harvested fields revealed the game; the time of the hunt.
Also called
Falling Leaves Moon · Blood Moon (old Europe)
Origin of the name
After the harvest, the bare fields hid nothing: the game, fattened on summer’s gleanings, could be seen from afar. Like its September sister, the hunter’s moon rises early and for several evenings running — light enough to lengthen the chase. Old Europe called it more bluntly the blood moon: the month for slaughtering the beasts one could not feed through winter.
The story goes…
It was said that October was the moon of stores: smoking, salting, laying down in barrels. Everything done under this moon aimed at the same horizon — getting through winter.
The almanac’s word
Low on the horizon, the hunter’s moon often looks enormous and orange: an optical illusion that no one has yet entirely explained.