Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/50

Rh evil. .........Perhaps those butterflies were supposed to be the spirits of the thousands doomed to perish in battle, and agitated on the eve of war by some mysterious premonition of death.

However, in Japanese belief, a butterfly may be the soul of a dead person as well as of a living person. Indeed it is a custom of souls to take butterfly-shape in order to announce the fact of their final departure from the body; and for this reason any butterfly which enters a house ought to be kindly treated.

To this belief, and to queer fancies connected with it, there are many allusions in popular drama. For example, there is a well-known play called Tonde-deru-Kocho-no-Kanzashi; or, "The Flying Hairpin of Kochō.” Kochō is a beautiful person who kills herself because of false accusations and cruel treatment. Her would-be avenger long seeks in vain for the author of the wrong. But at last the dead woman's hairpin turns into a butterfly, and serves as a guide to vengeance by hovering above the place where the villain is hiding. 註