Moon superstitions: Origin, Meaning and When It Actually Started

Q: How old is this superstition?

First recorded: Antiquity; lunar planting calendars in Roman agricultural texts. 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.

When it actually starts

How old is this one

First recorded Antiquity; lunar planting calendars in Roman agricultural texts

That makes it about 1,976 years old

Rank by age 9 oldest of 40 dated here

Category Calendar

Searched 1,190 a month

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.

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

New Year superstitions 30,090/mo Friday the 13th 3,040/mo

Recorded around the same time

Moon superstitions is the 9th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.

Itchy palm 50 Owls as omens 50 Ringing in the ears 50 Left hand superstitions 50

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 →