Fly, Louse, and Flea in Religion, Myths, Mythology and Folklore

Before improvements in hygiene in the modern period, lice could be found in the hair and on the body of nearly everybody, from king to peasant. Though a perpetual annoyance, they could also serve as a means of social bonding. To pick lice off a person was a service that might be performed by parents for children or servants for masters. It was even a ritual of courtship and love, performed by couples. The presence of an inordinate number of lice might indicate either coarseness or, for ascetics, a lack of worldly concern. Thus, Julian the Apostate, the austere Roman emperor who attempted to revive paganism, once compared the lice running freely in his beard to wild beasts in a forest. Fleas also tended to be thought of in a familiar and, at times, even affectionate way, though they were by far the most dangerous insects of the lot. Though it was not realized until the end of the nineteenth century, fleas had been carriers of many diseases, including bubonic plague. In the Renaissance, references to fleas became a humorous convention in poetic diction. Among the most famous examples is “The Flea” by John Donne, a poem in which the author requests sexual favors from a woman by showing how their blood has mingled in the body of a flea:

But insects, like rats, are now often put in the service of medicine. Apart from human beings and perhaps rodents, the drosophila fruit fly has become the most studied animal in the world. Scientists have found that the genetic code of the fruit fly is easy to manipulate and has many affinities with that of human beings. In hope of correlating them with parts of the genome, all features of the creature’s life, from anatomy to courtship dances, have been intricately observed. One journalist recently remarked that researchers who study fruit flies “are easily provoked into confessing that they think of people as large flies with wigs” (Wade, p. F1)