The Wolf Moon
January's full moon
Beginnings, quiet, endurance
The January full moon, and one of the few names that appears in the 1937 Maine Farmers' Almanac list — where it was attributed not to any Native nation but to 'our early English ancestors'. The popular story that it marks wolves howling at winter camps is widely retold and has no reliable source behind it. Its companion name, Moon After Yule, is plainly Anglo-Saxon.
Where the name actually comes from
The honest attribution
In the 1937 Maine Farmers' Almanac list, credited to 'our early English ancestors'. The wolf association is repeated everywhere, sourced nowhere.
Also called: Old Moon, Moon After Yule, Ice Moon.
How it tends to be kept
- Traditionally marked as the deepest, quietest part of the northern winter
- Many people mark it as the first full moon of the calendar year
- Often kept simply, with a candle and a window, rather than anything elaborate
Questions the month asks
- What am I ready to begin?
- What has quietly sustained me?
- What does this winter actually ask of me?
Prompts are invitations to notice, not assignments — tradition offered as tradition.