Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/452

 432

Co rresp ondence.

Butterfly Charm.

Mr. Charles Rhodes Hirst, aged 23, formerly a clerk in my office, and now in the Town Clerk's office in Sheffield, tells me that when boys at Walkley near that city go in search of butter- flies they sing the following words to the following air, which he has written out for me himself : —

al ^ g-

Butterfly, butterfly, fly a - way home. Your house is on


 * ^=d==J=T= i I I I J — T ^ J-

\-ti d S

i^^

fire and the chil - dren all gone, All but one

Z±

d d d

m

un - der a tree, Writing a let - ter as fast as she can.

Mr. Hirst says that he is very familiar both with the words and the air, having heard them often during the last ten years. He says that when a butterfly appears the boys cease to sing, pull their coats off, and, taking hold of them by one sleeve, try to throw them over the butterfly and catch it.

In some parts of Europe, as well as in Eastern Asia, the butter- fly is regarded as a human soul which has escaped from the body (Frazer, Golden Bough, i., 259, 264; Gnmm, Deutsche Mythologie, English translation, ii., 829, where reference is made to the Greek tlvyjj). Can it be that this traditional formula, usually addressed to the ladybird, but here to the butterfly, once had for its object the recall of a wandering soul by rehearsing the misfortunes which required the owner's presence at home ?

It may be observed that the woi-ds "butter-fly," "lady-bird," and " lady-cow," have not yet been explained.

S. O. Addv.