The Wolf Moon…

January’s full moon rises with its teeth bared tonight. 

It’s called the Wolf Moon. 

Once upon a time when wolves prowled the woodlands of the UK, their howls threaded through frozen air during the deep winter months. Not as omens of evil, but as signals of endurance, hunger, survival and community.

The Wolf Moon comes at a time when the year is still raw, when resolutions already feel brittle, when the glow of December has dimmed and the long haul of winter makes itself known. 

There’s something deeply honest about January. Trees hold nothing they don’t need. Fields lie empty without apology. The Wolf Moon reflects this bareness back at us, asking: what remains when the excess is gone?

For me, the Wolf Moon inevitably pulls my thoughts toward Harrow House, my current writing project. But it isn’t the first time a wolf has threaded its way through my work, nor the first time the moon has left its mark.

In my duology The Sullivan Carter Chronicles, a wolf-like creature also stalks the margins of the story, and the protagonist, Sullivan, is nicknamed Moon Boy by his mother because he was born at the precise moment of daytime darkness during a solar eclipse. 

I seem drawn to these liminal moments. Not the obvious dark, but the moments when light fails unexpectedly, when certainty flickers, and something else is given room to emerge.

Within the lore of the Harrow family in Harrow House, there’s a long-whispered curse and a legend that something wolf-like roams the outer edges of the estate, on the wild North Yorkshire Moors. It’s never seen clearly, only glimpsed. A fleeting, black shape moving where hedges and bushes thicken, where the land gives way to shadow and uncertainty. 

Unreliable claims, perhaps, made by locals who’ve spent centuries passing stories down from generation to generation? 

Maybe.

And it’s this delicious uncertainty that creates a fear of the dark boundaries beyond the scary-in-its-own-way Harrow House. 

You might leave whenever you like. But who knows what other evils might eat you up on your way. 

Better stay, in that case. 

Better the devil you know. 

Contrary to the familiar myths of werewolves, this Harrow Estate creature doesn’t transform beneath the full moon. Because when unburdened by clouds, the full moon illuminates too much. It exposes the land, sharpens outlines and leaves less space for ambiguity to hide.

Instead, the change comes with the new moon, when it’s completely dark and the sky offers no guidance at all. Night becomes total. Shadows deepen. Distance turns unreliable, and the unseen presses closer. In those nights, that’s when it’s rumoured the wolf-like creature of Harrow Estate sheds its skin and becomes something more terrifying.

I’ve always been drawn to this inversion of the werewolf myth. Not the monster revealed by light, but the monster concealed by it. Darkness, after all, doesn’t create fear. It gives it room to breathe. 

The full moon, then, becomes a kind of contrast. A reminder that not all dangers lurk in the dark, and not all truths reveal themselves when illuminated. Some things can only survive on the periphery. Some stories need shadow to exist at all.

Back to the Wolf Moon. Wolves howl not in loneliness, but in connection. They call to locate one another, to strengthen the pack, to remind each other they are not alone in the dark. Under the Wolf Moon, it’s a night for acknowledging hunger of all kinds. Not just for food, but for meaning, for warmth, for reassurance. What have you been starved of? What have you been hoarding out of fear it won’t return?

The Wolf Moon reminds us that survival is not weakness. Needing others is not failure. And making it through the winter, one night at a time, is its own kind of power.

Listen closely. 

The dark isn’t empty. It’s alive with voices.