Joann Merritt's Essays

Dragonfly Myths
July, 1999

Until recently I had no answer when someone asked me why dragonflies were called “snake doctors.” The following explanation is taken from an article in the June issue of Reader’s Digest entitled The Lords of Time by Richard Conniff. “Because of their appearance, dragonflies have attracted a richly varied, mostly unflattering mythology. One branch of folklore holds that dragonflies are servants of snakes and revive them from the dead; in the southern United States they are referred to as “snake doctors.”

Dragonflies have also been called “devil’s darning needles,” supposedly capable of stitching together the lips of wicked children in their sleep. They have been reviled as “eye stickers” or “mule killers.”

Thanks to this informative four-page article, I now have answers - if only I could remember who asked me the questions. I wish I hadn’t read the myth concerning the devil’s darning needle, that’s more than I’d like to know. Oh, well, as grandson Rocky truthfully predicted, “I’ll tell you about my video game, Grandma, but you’ll just forget it.” So I’ll hopefully forget the devil and his needle. I much prefer the dragon fly names Burr gave us in the December 1995 issue of The Phalarope: Kiowa Dancers and Red-mantled Gliders. There’s also Smoky Rubyspot, Aztec Dancer, Desert Dancer, Desert Firetail - all great names for dragonflies.