Crickets ...

Golden light on the hills, sitting on a friend’s deck drinking cold water, tired from trimming and tying grape vines, and listening to tinkling, coppery bell tones. Crickets on an autumn evening at the farm.

A grasshopper-like insect that is rarely if ever seen, the ristikas or kilk has entered mythology by inspiring Estonia’s version of the tooth fairy. Children losing a milk tooth place it on or near the kitchen wood stove, for a magical viruskundra to take it unseen, and to give to the child an “iron tooth” in the lost tooth’s stead.

Strong teeth stand for the vigour of life in those fortunate to have them, in Estonian tradition. They were certainly an attribute our father prized. As he got older and started losing a few, he called on dentistry to put in implants; some held firm, others didn’t.

Wearing animal teeth around the neck as a talisman wards off evil and misfortune, one of many ways of dealing with common fears held in Estonian rural folklore. 

Returning to crickets, the grasshopper tribe are orthopterans, having straight wings at right angles to the body, hence ristikas, or the shape of a cross. The southern Estonian word, kilk, could be onomatopoeic for the sound they make. The same could be said for the word, “cricket”.

The Japan haiku poet Matsuo Basho associated the kirigirisu with feelings of loneliness and declining life, while several spirit animal websites regard crickets as auspicious.  

Crickets are not the only insects to be found in Estonian Mythology for the Beginner by Marju Kõivupuu. Two species of tiger moth are associated with lightning, and many spirits can take the visual form of bees or butterflies.

No tiger moths at the farm to my knowledge, but New Zealand blues at this time of year, along with the last of the glade coppers, and the much larger yellow admirals, newly hatched and drying their wings in the sunshine.

As to the crickets, they call up for me the fragrance of chamomile tea, or is it the scent of bare grass stalks drying as another autumn takes hold?