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Our Butterfly Souls (page 2 of 3)

One of the oldest and richest stories from pre-Christian Ireland is the "Tochmarc Etain" or the "wooing of Etain". The story involves the beautiful daughter of an Ulaid King¹ and Midhir, the son of Dagda, a powerful king of the Tuatha D'e Danaan².

In this story, the first wife to Midhir, Fuamnach, is so jealous of Etain that she casts a spell on her changing her into a butterfly³. The story continues with Fuamnach conjuring up a storm that blows Etain into the wine glass of the wife of an Ulster chieftain named Etar. The butterfly Etain is accidentally consumed by the woman who shortly thereafter becomes pregnant, delivering a baby daughter months later. The story resumes with the daughter, a beautiful young Etain growing up to marry a high King of Ireland.

The complexity of Irish mythology has faeries cast in all kinds of roles. They are often super natural beings that can have many qualities: powerful, good, evil, mischievous and benevolent. Old Irish faeries came in a great number of forms and sizes from beautiful to hideous. Their representations are very different than the modern day depiction of fairies. Perhaps in part from the influence of the story of Etain the modern fairy is portrayed as a beautiful diminutive woman with butterfly or insect wings.

The Serbs believed the soul could leave the body in the form of a butterfly or moth and thought the sight of one was a witch's soul in the midst of astral projection. They also believed vampires could transform into the insects as well.

In southern Germany it was commonly thought that butterflies were the souls of children fluttering about in search of women so they could be born. They also thought them to be witches that stole cream explaining the name "schmetterlings" probably derived from a type of cream they call schmetten. A translation of this is more than likely where the English word “butterfly" came from as well.

Ancient civilizations in Asia and Africa have their own unique stories and legends about butterflies and the western hemisphere has many beautiful tales from Native Americans. More.....