Sunday, August 1, 2010

The Legend of the First FireFly

In the local dialect (Tagalog),fireflies are called "alitaptap". You can see a lot of them flickering their tail-lights in the suburbs of Los Banos, Laguna (A town soutn of Luzon, Philippines). Apart from us, human beings, they are about the only creatures that used fire. Let us learn about the legend of how fireflies came to use fire.

In the beginning, fireflies were just insects, small and ordinary. They do not have that special fire that kindles light at night. The first generation of fireflies come out only during the day. Like any other creatures, they rest under the leaves and flowers of plants that they come across as soon as the shade of darkness cover the land. So generally speaking, fireflies are scared of the night except for a full moon that brings out a gentle glow in the middle of darkness"