Arachnids/Spiders

"If you wish to live and thrive, Let a spider run alive. "

While shopping with my mom for plants, I decided to make a turn at the pet-shop instead of going with her to the nursery section and came across this beautiful eight -joint-legged creepy crawly invertebrate . I know many people suffer from arachnophobia (the irrational fear of spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions) because of stories being told and pictures doing the rounds on the web of people loosing chunks of meat and even dying due to an untreated spider bite, instilling this deadly fear we have for these hairy long legged species.

Fortunately I do not have this fear, in actual fact, they have had a mesmerizing effect on me since I was a little girl. Do not get me wrong, I have the greatest respect for the poisonous ones and have seen the damage they can cause but not all of them needs to be feared. Watching this spider doing its thing in the cage, triggered my memory of this website I came across a few months ago while looking up all kinds of legends from different countries so I decided to take a few photos and share some of their work with you on spiders.

The Legend of Arachne

The name science uses for spiders, 'arachnid', is derived from a Greek myth outlined in the following story.

Long ago in a village on the plain below Mount Olympus lived a beautiful maiden named Arachne. She devoted her days to weaving and embroidering, and such was her skill that even the nymphs from the woods crept out and gazed with awe at the wonderful pictures she wove.

Unfortunately, Arachne was admired but never loved, as she boasted endlessly about her own skill and deftness. She was so sure of her skills that she boasted that not even Athene, the goddess of wisdom and patroness of arts could rival her work.

Athene was so incensed by these taunts that she visited Arachne, disguised as an old woman, and warned her against incurring the wrath of the gods. Arachne dismissed the warning and claimed if ever she met Athene she would challenge her to a contest. Athene threw off her cloak and accepted the challenge.

Athene chose for her tapestry her own contest with Neptune while Arachne chose the abduction of Europa. As their labours finished, each turned to see the other's work- while Arachne's tapestry was wonderful, one glance at Athene's work sufficed to show that Arachne was beaten.

In despair, Arachne tried to hang herself in her own tapestry; however, Athene was unwilling for her rival to escape so easily and changed her suspended body into a misshapen and repulsive form and condemned her to continue weaving throughout the ages.

The Legend of the Spider and the Silken Thread held in God's Hand

There's an old Danish Legend with a lesson for us all
Of an ambitious spider and his rise and fall,
Who wove his sheer web with intricate care
As it hung suspended somewhere in midair,
Then in soft, idle luxury he feasted each day
On the small foolish insects he enticed as his prey.

Growing ever more arrogant and smug all the while
He lived like a 'king' in self-satisfied style -
And gazing one day at the sheer strand suspended
He said "I don't need this" so he recklessly rended
The strand that had held his web in its place
And with sudden swiftness the web crumpled in space.

And that was the end of the spider who grew
So arrogantly proud that he no longer knew
That it was the strand that reached down from above
Like the chord of God's grace and His infinite love
That links our lives to the great unknown.
For man cannot live or exist on his own.

And this old legend with simplicity told
Is a moral as true as the Legend is old.

Anonymous, found in an old bible circa 1940

Source:

http://www.spiderzrule.com/legends.htm

One for the Ladies!

Image Credit