Apple's Planet

Apple's Butterfly Special - 2007

Butterflies are classified as insects. They are mostly very popular in Japanese and Chinese Art.

It has been quoted in "Butterflies" chapter in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, "a butterfly is seen as the personification of a person's soul; whether they be living, dying, or already dead".

One Japanese superstition says that if a butterfly enters your guestroom and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. However, large numbers of butterflies are viewed as bad omens. When Taira no Masakado was secretly preparing for his famous revolt, there appeared in Kyoto so vast a swarm of butterflies that the people were frightened—-thinking the apparition to be a portent of coming evil.

According to Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion, some of the Nagas of Manipur trace their ancestry from a butterfly.

In the Chinese culture, two butterflies flying together are a symbol of love. Also a famous Chinese folk story called Butterfly Lovers. The Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi once had a dream of being a butterfly flying without care about humanity, however when he woke up and realised it was just a dream, he thought to himself "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"

In some old cultures, butterflies also symbolize rebirth into a new life after being inside a cocoon for a period of time.

Some people say that when a butterfly lands on you it means good luck.

The idiom "butterflies in the stomach" is used to describe a state of nervousness.