Wine Moon

August's Song Moon, Grain Moon, Lynx Moon...and blue moons

L’allée d’eau by Charles Guilloux, 1895

We are sneaking in two full moons this month, one right at the beginning and one right at the end. This happens from time to time, there sometimes being 13 full moons in a year. It makes it tricky to assign the old Medieval and Celtic names to them. Luckily there are plenty for August, so split them as you will. Grain Moon obviously refers to the ripening grain in the fields, while Lynx Moon is a bit more of a puzzle. When I was first investigating this for The Almanac I concluded that this might not be connected to the big cat, seeing as it has been extinct in Britain for 1,300 years, but rather to the root of its name. The word lynx is derived from the Middle English word leuk meaning ‘light’ or ‘brightness’ and is given to lynxes because of their pale yellow, reflective eyes. Whether this is an incredibly old name and the moon was thought to look like a lynx’s eye or whether this was just a way of saying ‘ooh isn’t the moon bright this month’ we may never know, but I lean towards the latter.

Wine Moon and Song Moon I feel refer to the fact that we are now into grain harvesting time, which would have been a time of the coming together of the whole community for hard work and hard play. I love the idea of harvesters sitting out after their exhausting day’s work under the full moon and having a bit of a carouse.

The full moon on the 1st falls at 7.32pm

The full moon on the 31st falls at 2.36am

They are both super moons, which means that the moon is full at the same moment it is at its closest to the earth (or within its closest 30% anyway) in its imperfect orbit. They will look larger and brighter than usual.

The second full moon in a month is sometimes known as a ‘blue moon’, which makes it sound rarer than it is. You will likely see the second full moon of this month referred to as a ‘super blue moon’, which makes it sound incredibly special. It kind of is but…y’know… within the normal run of things. Sorry to sound like a party pooper. Hopefully the clouds will part for either or both and they will be very beautiful to behold, blue or otherwise.

All of this information is from The Almanac, the 2024 edition of which is out at the end of this month.

Wishing you clear skies.