Also called October full moon, the full moon after the Harvest Moon, Falling Leaves Moon, Blood Moon (older usage)
The Hunter's Moon is the full moon that follows the Harvest Moon, usually in October, a name English country people were using by 1710. Its rite is a provisioning rite: taking stock, filling the pantry and preparing the household for winter.
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
Take care: Keep any candle on a fireproof dish and never leave it burning unattended. If you go outside at night, dress for the weather, take a light and tell someone where you are. Moon names tied to specific Native nations belong to living languages and ceremonies. Read them as those nations' own knowledge, not as rites to copy; the steps here are an open seasonal practice anyone can do.
The 1710 edition of The British Apollo, a London question-and-answer paper, credits the name to the country people. It was a moon for hunting after the fields were cleared, when game was fat and riders could see across the stubble.
Each autumn since 1968 the Tippecanoe County Historical Association has held the Feast of the Hunters' Moon at Fort Ouiatenon Park near West Lafayette, Indiana. It reenacts the 18th-century fall gathering of French traders and Native peoples at the fort.
Carver called October the Travelling Moon, when families left their villages for winter hunting grounds, and December the Hunting Moon. The English Hunter's Moon and these names grew from the same seasonal reality.
The Hunter's Moon is defined by its place, not its month: it is the full moon right after the Harvest Moon, which makes it October's full moon in most years and November's when the Harvest Moon itself falls in October. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the term from the 1710 edition of The British Apollo, which credits it to country people, so it is an English name rather than an almanac invention.
The Old Farmer's Almanac explains the name by game animals fattening for winter and people hunting and storing meat after the harvest. It also lists other names for this moon, including Drying Rice Moon for the Dakota, Freezing Moon for the Ojibwe and Migrating Moon for the Cree. Some older and modern sources also call it the Blood Moon, a different use from the red moon of a lunar eclipse.
The folk rites of the end of harvest: the last sheaf cut and woven into a corn dolly or neck, carried home with shouting, and kept until spring, followed by the harvest supper. Mabon is a modern Pagan name for the autumn equinox, coined around 1970.
The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the September equinox, so it usually falls in September and sometimes in early October. For a few nights around it the moon rises soon after sunset, giving farmers extra evening light, and its rite is a harvest gratitude meal.
The Beaver Moon is the popular name for November's full moon, recorded by Jonathan Carver for the season when beavers withdraw into their lodges with their winter food stored. Its rite is a home-sealing blessing: tighten up, warm up and settle in.
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