Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions. / A Complete Collection of the Legends, Superstitions, Beliefs, and Ominous Signs Connected with Insects; Together with Their Uses in Medicine, Art, and as Food; and a Summary of Their Remarkable Injuries and Appearances.

by Frank Cowan

To call my true-love from the faithless town.[11]

In Norfolk, too, where this insect is called the Bishop Barnabee, the young girls have the following rhyme, which they continue to recite to it placed upon the palm of the hand, till it takes wing and flies away:[12]

Bishop, Bishop Barnabee,

Tell me when my wedding be:

If it be to-morrow day,

Take your wings and fly away!

Fly to the east, fly to the west,

Fly to him that I love best.[13]

Why the Lady-bird is called Bishop Barnabee, or Burnabee, there is great difference of opinion. Some take it to be from St. Barnabas, whose festival falls in the month of June, when this insect first appears; and others deem it but a corruption of the Bishop-that-burneth, in allusion to its fiery color.[14]

The following metrical jargon is repeated by the children in Scotland to this insect under the name of Lady Lanners, or Landers:[15]