The waxing and waning of the moon over of the course of the lunar year was how our ancient ancestors tracked the changing seasons.
And, of course, they gave the various moons special names to reflect when they occurred and their significance to their lives.
This week we saw the first full moon of the year, known in both Anglo-Saxon and Native American cultures as a ‘wolf moon’.
It also happened to be a ‘supermoon’, too — when a full moon comes closest to the earth on its elliptical orbit and appears as a brilliant white disk that seems about 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than normal.
Indeed, this combined ‘wolf supermoon’ heralds the start of an intense bout of lunar activity which, as I shall explain, could be having a marked effect on human behaviour.
On the last day of this month we will be treated to another supermoon.
And because it is that comparatively rare thing — a second full moon occurring within the space of a calendar month — it is also known as a blue moon.
But first, the ‘wolf moon’, so-called because it was believed to make wolves howl with strange and frightening vigour.
Animal behaviour experts know that wolves howl more around this time of the year, not least because they are revving up for the start of the breeding season in February and feeling the effects of a surge in testosterone.
An average howl from a single wolf lasts between three and seven seconds. But a full chorus by a lusty pack can last from 30 to 120 seconds this month.
Primitive communities were also aware that in midwinter, when food sources were at their lowest, hungry wolves would stay worryingly close to human settlements.
For Saxon cultures, January (or its lunar equivalent) was the ‘wolf month’ when people were at highest risk of being stalked by wolves.
A supermoon pictures over Westminister – there will be another supermoon at the end of this month
In reality, the night of a full wolf moon was probably the safest possible for humans. According to researchers who have radio-tagged wolves, the animals avoid hunting then for the entirely sensible reason that bright moonlight severely curtails the chances of achieving a kill.
As for howling ‘at’ a full moon, this is something of a myth that has grown up around the fact that wolves look as if they are doing just that, but are simply pointing their nose upwards because it makes their howling carry further.
While science offers an explanation for wolves’ lunar behaviour, researchers are still pondering the influence of full moons on humans.
A plane flies in front of a ‘supermoon’ or ‘wolf moon’ on its approach to London Heathrow Airport on January 1
Last month, a 40-year global study of traffic accidents found that motorcyclists are significantly more likely to be killed in collisions when there is a full moon.
The risk of death is five per cent higher during a normal full moon — and an astonishing 27 per cent greater when a supermoon is rising in the sky, according to the report in the British Medical Journal.
Victims are most likely to be middle-aged men on motorbikes roaring down country roads at night, the study found. (Whether or not they were humming ‘Born To Be Wild’ at the time of their demise is unknown.)
A rare ‘wolf moon’ rises behind St Paul’s Cathedral and the City’s skyline, photographed from the Hungerford Bridge, London
Seriously, the investigators have no conclusive explanation for the toll, but speculate that the bikers may get fatally distracted by the moon’s entrancing beauty.
Full moons also appear to disturb our sleep. A 2016 Canadian study of 5,800 children around the world found that, on average, they slept five minutes less on nights when the moon was full.
A Swiss study found similar results, in which people had a third less deep or REM sleep (the period during sleep cycles when we dream), and showed lower levels of the ‘sleep hormone’ melatonin in their blood. The 33 volunteers in the study were kept under strictly controlled conditions and were unaware of the phases of the moon.
The second full moon of the month will occur on January 31, marking the first of two ‘blue’ moons in 2018 – and, this will line up with a total lunar eclipse, which will turn the moon a striking red color for what’s known as the ‘Blood Moon.’ Stock image
Such studies are controversial, not least because no one has been able to show exactly how the moon might affect us physically.
Some sceptics mock the findings as ‘the Transylvania effect’ — the belief in the Middle Ages that humans changed into vampires or werewolves during a full moon.
Nevertheless, others argue that lunar gravity may indeed be responsible for physiological disruptions in the human body, resulting in behavioural changes.We know the effect of the moon on tidal patterns and that when full moons are close to earth, their gravitational pull causes higher tides.
During a lunar eclipse, Earth lines up between the sun and the moon, blocking the light that hits the lunar surface. This casts an Earth shadow over the moon, and causes it to appear blood red or orange during totality
Given that our brains are made up of 75 per cent water, perhaps there is some similar effect.
Varying levels of light might also be at play. The light from a full moon is up to 16 times greater than at other lunar phases.
Researchers at University College London found the number of epileptic seizures, which are related to electrical activity in the brain, falls when the moon is at its brightest. The hormone melatonin, secreted at night, might be implicated — though it is not clear how.
The first supermoon of 2018, known as a ‘wolf moon’ in the sky above the Shard in London on Monday evening
Well, if full moons really do have an influence on us, we should brace ourselves for January 31, which is an especially rare conjunction of lunar phenomena.
It is the second full moon of the month — a blue moon (although it is white and grey in appearance) and is a relative rarity, occurring on average every two and a half years.
According to Nasa, because there are roughly 29.5 days between full moons, it is unusual for two full moons to fit into a 30 or 31-day month. (The phrase ‘once in a blue moon’ has been around for centuries and evolved to mean something akin to ‘never’.
Experts believe the ‘blue moon blood moon supermoon’ rising on January 31 will be the most extraordinary of all
However, in 1883, after the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa, dust in the atmosphere caused the moon and sunsets to appear blue and green, which Nasa attributes to the understanding of the rarity of a blue moon. The understanding of the phrase changed from ‘never’ to ‘rarely’.)
It so happens that this next blue moon will reach the closest point in its earth orbit on January 30, so it is to all intents a supermoon too.
And rarest of all, this particular blue supermoon will be eclipsed by the earth, blocking the sun’s rays from it in a celestial alignment of sun, earth and moon which is known as a syzygy.
People admire the ‘super moon’ from the Terrazza del Pincio, in Rome, on January 1
We won’t see that in the UK, but on a cloudless night in parts of North America and Asia, lucky observers will see the moon turning from white to dull glowing red.
This is because although the earth blocks out sunlight from the moon, our atmosphere bends red-spectrum light behind our planet and onto the moon, creating a rosy hue — in effect a rare ‘red’ blue moon. The last such total eclipse of a blue moon happened in 1866.
And if that’s not enough to leave you feeling quite moonstruck, then surely nothing ever will.