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Flutterbys
Sep. 19th, 2013 09:51 pmI've always been susceptible to superstitions. I know not why, except to suppose that I am an especially credulous person. One that's stuck with me for a while I picked up from one of the Moomintroll books, that I first read when I was about six or seven. It goes like this: if the first butterfly of summer that you see is white or yellow then that is good luck, and you are in for a lovely summer. If the butterfly is brown or black then that is terrible luck.
I've often wondered at the logic of this, from a gardener's perspective. After all, there's a reason they call them 'Cabbage Whites'. But I was reminded of it recently when I saw my first butterfly of this spring and it was black and orange. So I looked it up (well, I googled it). And while there are a couple of 'see this colour butterfly, expect good weather' superstitions there's nothing I could find that more precisely matched the Moomintroll superstition. Curse you, Tove Jannson, you have misled me for thirty years!
I've often wondered at the logic of this, from a gardener's perspective. After all, there's a reason they call them 'Cabbage Whites'. But I was reminded of it recently when I saw my first butterfly of this spring and it was black and orange. So I looked it up (well, I googled it). And while there are a couple of 'see this colour butterfly, expect good weather' superstitions there's nothing I could find that more precisely matched the Moomintroll superstition. Curse you, Tove Jannson, you have misled me for thirty years!
