Mythmaking

This lady-fly I take from off the grass,
Whose spotted back might scarlet red surpass.
Fly, lady-bird, north, south, or east, or west,
Fly where the man is found that I love best.
- John Gay (1685 – 1732)
Despite the fact that, when I was younger, spiders could force me out of a room for hours and black beetles made my skin crawl, I never had such a problem with ladybirds. My Mum's house was frequently visited by the 'little red sphere', or Coccinellid, and even now upon finding one there I take the time to pick it up and make a wish before releasing it again.

The ladybird is probably the only insect to have been consistently viewed as an omen of good luck throughout the ages and it continues to enjoy popularity around the world today due to its talent for pest control. Its reputation as an admirable creature, in Britain at least, has been cemented by its association with the much loved Ladybird Books, who have been churning out children's classics for the past hundred years.

The word 'ladybird' itself is an evolution of 'lady beetle', which was so called because of its traditional connection with the Virgin Mary. A popular legend recalls that during the middle ages when invasive insects were destroying food crops, the farmers prayed to the Virgin Mary and were blessed with thousands of ladybirds who quickly ate the pests and saved the harvest. From then on, the ladybird was known as 'Our Lady's Beetle', which evolved through ladybeetle, ladybug and finally to the presently known ladybird. This religious connection is also found in the ladybirds' names around the world:

• Nyckelpiga - Our Lady's Key-Maid (Scandinavian)


• Marienkafer - Mary's Beetle (German)


• Bozhia Korovka - God's Little Cow (Russian)*


• Vaquilla de Dios - Cow of God (Spanish)*


• Bete a bon Dieu - literally Animal of the Good God (France)

*the nomen of ‘cow’ most likely given because of the ladybirds’ markings.

Why the final shift from 'bug' to 'bird' occurred in Britain is unclear, but the Online Etymology Dictionary proposes that it was done 'through aversion to the word bug, which there has overtones of sodomy'.


One of the ladybirds' most curious nicknames is Bishop Barnabee, first transcribed in Notes & Queries in 1849. It is still unknown where the latter part of the nickname originates, but with regards to its clerical title, a writer in the December issue of the above journal states:

"The dignified ecclesiastics in ancient times wore brilliant mixtures of colours in their habits. Bishops had scarlet and black, as this insect has on its wing-covers."

The ladybirds' colouring has also been attributed to the Virgin Mary; the red being symbolic of her mantle or robes and the seven black dots corresponding to her Seven Sorrows or Seven Joys, though this explanation must obviously only refer to the seven-spotted ladybird since the common genus sports only two spots.


The most well known area of ladybird folklore is that which involves the ladybird settling on a person's hand, usually accompanied by a rhyme.

In Welsh Folk-Lore (1887), author Elias Owen explains one procedure to use a ladybird to foretell the weather:

"First of all the lady-bird was placed in the palm of the left hand, or right; I do not think it made any difference which hand was used, and the person who held it addressed it as follows -

'Lady-bird, lady-bird, tell to me
What the weather is going to be;
If fair, then fly in the air,
If foul, then fall to the ground.'

The first two lines were said with the beetle in the hand, and the last two whilst it was thrown upwards; if it came to the ground without attempting to fly, it indicated rain; if, however, when thrown into the air it flew away, then fair weather was to be expected. The writer has often resorted to this test, but whether he found it true or false he cannot now say."

In Weather and Folk Lore (1911), Charles Dack states:

"Children, even now, when they find a Ladybird or cow lady say -

'Click, Clock, Clay. What time o'day.
One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, Click, clock, clay.'"

Unfortunately he makes no mention of what the exact method is, but presumably the o'clocks are counted until the ladybird takes flight, much like the blowing away of dandelion seeds.

James Napier recounts in Folk Lore and Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century (1879):

"Grown up girls, when they caught a lady bird, held it in their hands, and repeated the following couplet -

'Fly away east or fly away west,
And show me where lives the one I like best.'

Its flight was watched with great anxiety, and when it took the direction which the young girl wished, it was not only a sort of pleasure, but a proof of the augury."

Another verse on determining the whereabouts of a future lovers home, again from Scotland, states:

"Lady, Lady Landers
Lady, Lady Landers
Tak yer cloak aboot your heid
An flee awa to Flanders.
Flee ower firth and flee ower fell,
Flee ower pool and rennin well,
Flee ower muir an flee ower mead,
Flee ower leevin, flee ower deid,
Flee ower corn, flee ower lea,
Flee ower river, flee ower sea,
Flee ye east or flee ye west,
Flee til her that loves me best."

The most famous, if somewhat cruel, rhyme is well known throughout the British Isles and has many regional variations. The frying pan is sometimes replaced by a grindstone and the name of the last little ladybird changes from place to place, but this is the one that I remember:

"Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children are gone.
All but one and her name's Anne,
and she crept under the frying pan."

Having recited the rhyme, the ladybird was then blown off the hand if it hadn't flown away already. The verse is said to originate from farmers warning the helpful ladybirds to leave their fields before setting fire to the land in order to clear it and make ready for another years' crops.

I assume that all of the above verses were taught to children to encourage them not to harm a ladybird if it landed on them but rather to release it back into the air, thus allowing it to continue with its pest eradicating duties.


The ladybird as a symbol of luck permeates most European cultures and all of them consider killing a ladybird to be extremely unlucky. The most obvious of the superstitions is that if numerous ladybirds are seen flying in Spring, the crops will be good! Others include the ladybird granting a wish, carrying away ailments or foretelling a marriage within the year if it lands on the hand or crawls across it. The number of spots on the back of the ladybird are also significant and can denote how many happy months you will have in the immediate future, how many children you'll have or how much money you are about to find. Unfortunately they don't give any clues to the whereabouts of this supposed wealth!

Labels: folklore, ladybirds, superstition