The Daily: 22 October 2025

The Harvest Moon west dark yesterday at 8:25am my time. Today, begins the 13th and final moon in my annual round, the Hunter’s Moon.

Many folks seem to think this moon is named for the hunting season. This is neither temporally nor mythically correct. It is not yet hunting season, if by hunt you mean “pursuing and killing animals for food”. Ruminant hunting season does not begin until after the fall rut, the breeding season — otherwise you’d be wiping out the potential for future prey. You may be able to hunt turkey and other wild fowl in the weeks between the Harvest Moon and Hallowe’en in some areas, though this is rare and somewhat foolish because again, killing in the growing season severely limits what will be around next year.

But this moon was not named for the actual hunting of animals. No, this moon is named for something far less tangible and heroic. Our ancestors named it for the Wild Hunt, a metaphysical culling that paralleled the culling of domestic herds and flocks which sees peak activity around Martinmas — 11 November. In this hunt, we are not the hunters. We are the prey. Or our souls are anyway.

The Wild Hunt is an anthropomorphism of endings and death. The Hunt encompasses a whole slew of myths from the cold regions of Eurasia. These are otherworldly beings pursuing the newly dead. These stories merge the wild weather at the end of autumn, the death and dormancy of plant and animal life, and the increase in human mortality as the weather turns cold into ghost tales. We hear the chilling howl of spectral hounds and the pounding hoofbeats of flying steeds in the autumn winds. We feel the ghostly breath of pursuit, smell rank death in the hoarfrost and rotting leaves. We are pricked by the sharp claws of loss and the certain knowledge of our own end. We know the Hunt follows hard on our heels in this growing darkness. And we run.

However, the earliest myths reveal a rather different story than what looms large in modern imaginations. In those ancient stories, the Hunter is an old woman. She is not grandmotherly and cuddly, but she is concerned. Her role is to shepherd newly dead spirits, lost and bewildered in the Unknown. She is gathering up straying souls, especially of the young and innocent, to set them on the correct path to the Otherworld. She may seem vicious at times, when the living interfere, because she is the stern judge as well as the gentle hayward. Her rule is the law and may not be broken, but she does listen to grief and does her best to console.

But there is no eternal embodied life, and man will beat his fists against the perceived injustice of his native fate, the termination of his ego. So… there were conflicts of interest. In time, the psychopomp became demonized. The Wild Hunt was given all the accoutrements of the conquering hunter. The Hunt became cold killers with empty eyes and sharp arrows, aiming to damn the dead. The Hunt was imbued with malice and aggression. The Hunt became feared and gruesome. The Hunt transmogrified into all our darkest fears about death. And because Death is a powerful enemy, a worthy opponent, one that we have never bested (though not for lack of effort), the Hunt became male.

But those titillating tales are not what I think of when gazing at the Hunter’s Moon. For me, the Hunt is the gathering of souls, all souls that have died in the last year. The Hunters do not deal out death but serve, instead, as drovers, herding the newly dead into the afterlife. There may be stories of ferries in the fog and hell hounds in the heavens. There are dark huntsmen, cloaked gods in broad-brimmed hats, and stern old crones, all of whom have scary sides. But when analyzed in bulk, most of the tales reveal kindness and compassion and a great love of the hapless newly dead. Yes, you may have to pay the ferryman, but he is almost always a gentle being under a gruff exterior. Perhaps this is how humans want to be seen themselves.

The Hunters are, however, universally upholders of the law, keepers of the ways and means. They do not abide rule breaking, though they seem amenable to bending quite a bit, if by doing so they can calm fears and salve the pain. As rule keepers, they do not look kindly on those who flaunt wrong-doing, and sometimes the wrong seems rather arbitrary. If you don’t have your spinning done by Midwinter, you risk cold and chaos dealt out by Perchta in the coming months. If you don’t get your harvest in before All Souls’ Day, you will go hungry because the pooka spits on the brambles, fields and orchards on Hallowe’en. If you are abroad in the dark when the Cailleach is about her business, you may well find yourself on the paths of the dead.

If these punishments seem harsh relative to the infractions, remember that these stories come from the days of consequences — days that we are experiencing again — when to not complete life-supporting tasks when they need to be completed — like having warm cloth for winter, putting by food in the pantry before the frost, making your way home before the trackless dark and howling storms of late autumn nights claim the paths and highways — you risk losing your life. And you risk the lives of those who are bound up with your life. These stories are guides to practical living as well as reassurance that death is not exclusively to be feared. You may find yourself accidentally in the land of the dead, but if it’s not your time, that is if you followed the rules, you generally stand a pretty fair chance of being returned to your bed by the Hunters.

But not before they’ve thoroughly scared the bejeezus out of you…

Because it is the season of death, after all…

Notable Days under the Hunter’s Moon

Well, of course, there’s Hallowe’en, All Hallows Day, and Día de los Muertos. Next week is a celebration of darkness and death and great mystery. Get out your pointy hats, my pretties!

Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 am on November 2nd, meaning sunset in my part of the world will be 4:36pm. Fortunately, we’re approaching the solstice now and day length isn’t changing too much. The earliest sunsets, beginning a month from now on December 8th, are only a half hour earlier at 4:11pm. But… this shift from 5:30 (usually after we’re home from work) to 4:30 (well before quitting time) in the first week of November feels quite drastic. It takes me weeks to reset my internal clock.

The Hunter’s Moon is full on November 5th which is also Guy Fawkes Day, in which things are set on fire to commemorate the hapless Catholic reactionary who was caught trying to blow up Puritan Parliament in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The season of Samhaine ends on the 5th (though some say it ends with Hallowe’en). Time to put away the last of autumn and prepare for Early Winter. This is the brown season. The trees are bare. There may be snow, but it will not linger. This is a liminal time, not still autumn, not yet winter, the last two weeks of the lunar cycle.

St Martin’s Day is on November 11th. This is Martinmas, which is not exactly the same thing as the saint’s day and probably predates the saint. Martinmas is the traditional culling of livestock, killing many so that there is enough fodder for the remaining breeding stock. It is a time of blood sausage and chitterlings. This is also Remembrance Day, the day the Great War ended and poppies bloomed red. The Mayflower also arrived on Cape Cod on November 11, 1620…

The Hunter’s Moon goes dark on November 20th (at 1:47am my time), ushering in the new lunar year, Celtic style, with the new Winter Sleep Moon on the 21st.

The Wednesday Word

for 22 October 2025

seeker

This is another aspect of the Hunter, one I closely identify with. I do not believe in conquest. And in any case the most productive hunters, in actual fact, are not those bristling with large weapons and muscles. They are the cagey rangers who set clever traps. Their prey is not a trophy buck, but the ubiquitous rabbits and birds and the occasional doe. And all of it is food, ballast for bellies hollowed out with the end of the growing season.

But… hunting, real or imagined, does not resonate in my life.

However, seeking does… If a single epithet would be slapped on my gravestone to encompass all that I am, Seeker would do quite nicely…

What does seeker mean to you? Think about it. If you’d like, send me a quick poem or story… or just a few thoughts. If you really have something to say, maybe enter my Wednesday Word contest on AllPoetry.

And now here are the thoughts that arise in me when I think on seeking…

we hunt truth
     feeding on its vitality
     agency authenticity
we seek our selves
     entwined in entangled nets
     following the strands
     back to source
we quest and question
     revealing unknowns
     making peace with each
and we root through soil
     snuffling in leaf mould and detritus
     probing dark interstices
     uncovering occluded anima
          never to conquer
          never for conquest
but for why
     for how
          for what
for completion and consilience
     connection in the between
where do we lead
     what do we follow
          who came before
     and who is our legacy
yes, we hunt
we hunt under this pale moon
          with tooth and claw and will
     to render these cages
     to cut through lies
     to lay bare our being
     in the full light of day

©Elizabeth Anker 2025