The Men Who Met by Moonlight | The Lunar Society, Harvest Moon | History Sleep Story

The lane runs north out of Birmingham between hedgerows left to grow as they please, the fields cut down to pale stubble, and the Harvest Moon has risen low and peach-gold to light a lone rider home. Somewhere behind him, a dinner table has just gone quiet over a question no one in England could answer. Tonight a letter arrives at the Moonlit Cottage, sealed in brass-coloured wax and addressed to you. It is an invitation to take your seat at the Lunar Society, and before you do, it is customary that you be told who sat here first. This is the true story of the Lunarticks: the physicians, potters, engine-builders and chemists of 18th-century Birmingham who met on the Monday nearest each full moon so they could ride home by its light. Erasmus Darwin, James Watt, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and William Withering, the men who measured fire, found a new air, and asked questions the world would spend centuries answering. And the summer night in 1791 when a crowd went out along the road to Fair Hill. Narrated slowly by the Curator, for sleep, for rest, or for a quiet evening by the fire. The Lunar Society meets once a month, on the full moon. The next meeting falls on the Hunter's Moon. Your chair will be kept. Sleep softly, fellow Seekers. The candle stays lit. Moth & Moon · The Moonlit Cottage #SleepStory #HistoryForSleep #LunarSociety