The Firefly (part 1 of 3)

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Firefly

A little light is going by,
Is going up to see the sky,
A little light with wings.

I never could have thought of it,
To have a little bug all lit
And made to go on wings.

— Elizabeth Madox Roberts
Under the Tree (1922)

Catching Fireflies print by Marie Fox

Like most people from west of Kansas I had never seen a firefly. I had thought of them as a bit of myth. After my first sighting last summer I found out that fireflies have always flown at the edge of myth and magic. To the ancient Maya of Central America they were one of the gods. They represented the stars of the heavens and the glowing smoky tip of a native cigar. Often their human/god likeness was used to decorate ceramic bowls.







Detail from a Mayan codex-style vase

"Amongst these Trees, night by night, through the whole Land, did shew themselves an infinite swarme of fierie Wormes flying in the Ayre, whose bodies being no bigger than common English Flyes, make such a shew and light, as if every Twigge or Tree had beene a burning Candle."

Description of fireflies from Sir Francis Drakes visit to
an island south of the Celebe islands in Indonesia in 1580.
From "The Second Circum-Navigation of the Earth:
Or the renowned Voyage of Sir Francis Drake,
the first General which ever sayled about the whole Globe,
begun in the yeere of our Lord, 1577.
heretofore published by M. R. Hackluyt, and now reviewed and corrected."




Male firefly in flight signaling and female on blade of grass responding

Hundreds of years later the Firefly (also called the Lightening Bug or Glowworm in its juvenile form) is still worthy of our awe.