August
Sturgeon Moon
Great-lake fishers once caught sturgeon in abundance.
Also called
Grain Moon · Red Moon
Origin of the name
On the American Great Lakes, August was the month when the sturgeon — an immense fish, nearly unchanged since the age of the dinosaurs — let itself be caught in abundance. The peoples of the shores drew an essential part of their stores from it. Europe, at the same moment, was gathering in: grain moon, moon of the early harvests.
The story goes…
It was said that a sturgeon could live more than a century and outgrow two metres; the fishermen swore they had seen bigger still. Grown rare, it left its name to the moon — folklore sometimes keeps the memory of a species better than the waters do.
The almanac’s word
It was also called the red moon: in the heat hazes of August, the full moon rises copper-coloured over the horizon.