Full moon behavior
The full moon is said to make people restless, hospitals busier and births more frequent.
Calendar superstition
Moon superstitions
Moon superstitions: a full moon brings births, madness and crime; hair cut on a waxing moon grows faster. First recorded: Roman agricultural texts of the 1st century — Columella and Pliny set planting and cutting by the moon. That makes it around 2,000 years old — joint 15th oldest of the 45 superstitions we have dated.
- Earliest record
- Roman era Roman agricultural texts of the 1st century
- Written down in
- 1867 Harland and Wilkinson, Lancashire
Record: John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore (London: Frederick Warne, 1867).
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Roman agricultural texts of the 1st century — Columella and Pliny set planting and cutting by the moon
That makes it
around 2,000 years old
Rank by age
Joint 15th oldest of 45 dated here
Category
Calendar
The moon is the most visible cycle in the sky after the sun, and it matched the menstrual cycle and tidal movement closely enough that a causal link seemed obvious. Planting by moon phase appears in Roman farming manuals and survives in almanacs.
14 of the dated superstitions here were written down earlier and 18 later, while 12 share its date.
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Primary source
As it was written down in 1867
“It is also very unlucky for anyone to look at the new moon, for the first time, through the window.”
John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore (London: Frederick Warne, 1867) — read the original text.
One of the moon omens recorded in Lancashire in 1867.
The versions people follow
What exactly is believed
New moon money
Turning coins in your pocket at the first sight of the new moon is meant to make money grow with it.
Planting by the moon
Crops that grow above ground are planted as the moon waxes, root crops as it wanes.
Seeing the moon through glass
In British lore, first seeing a new moon through a window brings bad luck for the month.
How the bad luck is traditionally undone
If you see the new moon through glass, the remedy is to go outside, bow to it three times and turn over the money in your pocket.
Where it lives today
Many nurses and police officers report believing in a full-moon effect, but large studies of admissions, crime and births have not found one.
What people say
A full moon brings births, madness and crime; hair cut on a waxing moon grows faster.What is going on
Studies of birth records and emergency admissions find no lunar effect. The belief persists partly because staff remember busy full-moon nights and forget quiet ones.Where it applies. Universal — this is the one category with no meaningful regional disagreement.
Other calendar superstitions
Nearest in age
Moon superstitions are joint 15th oldest of the 45 dated superstitions here. Of those, 3 date from 1900 or later and 14 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →
Sources
Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “Moon Superstitions: Origin, Meaning and When It Began.” Accessed October 28, 2026. https://astrohot.com/superstitions/moon-superstitions/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Moon Superstitions: Origin, Meaning and When It Began |url=https://astrohot.com/superstitions/moon-superstitions/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-28}}