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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Natural Histories

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Nature that has had a profound impact on human culture and society across history.

Nature that has got under our skin and profoundly impacted human culture and society across our history.

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Natural Histories: Butterflies

Butterflies

BBC Radio 4 - Natural Histories, Butterflies

Brett Westwood explores why we have eulogised the butterfly from time immemorial

Brett Westwood explores how the delicate, colourful yet exquisitely fragile butterfly has been eulogised through museum collections, works of art and folklore. From 2015

Shards of stained glass falling through sunlight – the butterfly is an image of beauty.  Delicate, colourful yet exquisitely fragile we have painted and eulogised the butterfly from time immemorial.

A “butterfly mind” skips from subject to subject... they are modern metaphors for the trivial and light-hearted. Yet we forget that at times some butterflies have been used as menacing creatures.

Their eye-spots, used to deter predators, were interpreted as eyes watching you from hedgerow and meadow to make sure no lewd behaviour happened in the fields.  The deep, blood red colour of the red admiral was seen as a sign of Christ’s crucifixion and therefore a symbol of suffering a death.

The butterfly metamorphoses between body forms, reminding us that our earthly body will one day be transformed.

Butterflies have also been the subject of overwhelming passion.  Intense, obsessive collectors have chased them over every continent, even shooting them from the skies with guns and then trembling with overwhelming excitement as they put a blackened, torn creature into their displays.  They are souls of the dead flying to heaven or an inspiration for fashion designers, or a symbol of death.  Few creatures have had so much laid on their delicate shoulders.

Today, butterflies are symbols of freedom and harmony with nature, the poster insects for a utopia where people and nature are at one.

Original Producer : Sarah Pitt
Archive Producer : Andrew Dawes

Revised Repeat : First Broadcast BBC Radio 4; 16th June 2015

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