Schmetterling

They sit and suck the nectar from our Buddleia. The Buddleia that came with us, a rogue seedling in a pot, abandoned on the Blackpool house patio. The one that has blossomed into a massive bush and beautiful mess here in our garden in Scotland.

Red Admirals, Peacocks, Large Whites, Tortoiseshell (large or small - who knows), now in August. Earlier in the year, many Orange-Tip. At local nature reserves, Meadow Browns and the odd Speckled Wood.

Orange Tip butterfly

An occasional Painted Lady – or could it be one of Fritillaries – resting on the sunny house wall. By the time I have located my phone, or a camera, they have taken off, of course.

This past week, one of the Admirals or Peacocks, resting on Comfrey leaves, large and hairy and almost gone over as they are, directly in front of my window to the garden, at my desk. No food there, just sun, shelter from the winds, perhaps.

What do we know about these insects that are so often used as a metaphor for delicate spiritual beauty, as well as the transformation they undergo? 

Peacock butterfly

The Big Butterfly Count is in its last few days, recording sightings in the British Isles. You can link to its website here: big butterfly count It is one of the ways to learn more about these insects with two pairs of colourful scaly wings as they are described in one of the many dictionaries I consulted in research.

I wanted to know why the names in English and German – butter-fly and Schmetter-ling – are so different. To find that they are not. Schmetter – as in the Schmetter-ball of tennis and table tennis, a shot of such power that it is un-returnable, turned out to be one of those funny language things where the sense of a word is changed by the change of one letter. In this case, SchmetteR-ling (ling being a word-part that makes a word a noun) used to be, or should be, SchmetteN-ling: and Schmetten is a Southeast German dialect word for cream, or butter. You see the connection - the butter - in the English butter-fly? A German etymology dictionary takes this – in my mind a little disgusting – image of an insect that lands in butter or cream and creates a mythical metaphor of witches (Hexen in German) who fly around disguised as colourful insects, in order to steal butter and cream from dairy farms. Thieves, in other words. How we went from thieving flying Hexen to symbols of spiritual beauty? That would be another deep rabbit hole to dive into.

Tortoiseshell butterfly

Instead, please find below an early draft of a poem in a series titled ‘Ten things Blue’:

Butterfly

We found you | in our special place | the one with all the rocks | the wild 

plants that flower | some | when we come here on birthdays | sunshine days | 

days we just need to be here | the place where I remember | the 

Mediterranean | rocky coasts | from before

you flapped and you fluttered | never sat still long enough| for me to see you 

properly | never mind take a photograph

you kept me busy back at home | until I found you | Common Blue | not that 

common | not like a colourful dog | known to all and sundry | only the most 

common | of the blue ones | and every book about blue things | says how 

uncommon | blue | is in nature

I don’t know | but I see blue things everywhere | flowers | they stand still for 

me | to know them | Tufted Vetch | Meadow Cranesbill | Forget-me-not | of 

course | Milkwort | these too in our special place

And the Blaue Blume | could it be one of those | have I found it already

Postscript: any words you may not recognise in the blog or poem are easily googleable. Enjoy!

Angela