A friend of mine comes from a family of beekeepers, and yeah, they get really attached to their bees!
One of the early Wabanaki (the tribes indigenous to Maine) stories says that after the Wabanaki people were created by Kloskabe, all the animals pretty much immediately began attacking them. Because they were all so big (moose, squirrels, raccoons, you name it, they were Big and Angry) it wasn't a fair fight at all! So Kloskabe rubbed the animals down until they were much smaller and wouldn't be such a threat to people. On the one hand I find the idea of a giant furious squirrel both funny and terrifying, and I'm also really intrigued by the theory that this story could represent cultural memory of the era of megafauna in the Americas!
Re: ITT: superstitions, folklore or old wives' tales that you like
One of the early Wabanaki (the tribes indigenous to Maine) stories says that after the Wabanaki people were created by Kloskabe, all the animals pretty much immediately began attacking them. Because they were all so big (moose, squirrels, raccoons, you name it, they were Big and Angry) it wasn't a fair fight at all! So Kloskabe rubbed the animals down until they were much smaller and wouldn't be such a threat to people. On the one hand I find the idea of a giant furious squirrel both funny and terrifying, and I'm also really intrigued by the theory that this story could represent cultural memory of the era of megafauna in the Americas!