A Beautiful Butterfly Surfaces

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Cormac MacConnell - The West's Awake

A Beautiful Butterfly Surfaces

September 13, 2007

By Cormac MacConnell

McGRATH came over the top of the mountain from his side and came in through Kavenagh’s back door, a great gaunt crow of a man, liquid brown eyes, a cap on his head, the aroma of the mountain air on him. McGrath lives as far up the mountain on his north facing side as Kavenagh does on the slope facing south. They are great vistas apart, viewing different worlds, but less than a mile by the rocky path that McGrath takes when he calls over.

He comes maybe five or six times a year, and that’s about twice more than Kavenagh makes the reverse trip. Between them, when the winds are right, they can hear the Angelus bells of 11 chapels down below.

Between them, when the airs are clear and it is sunny, they can see parts of no fewer than five counties including Galway and Clare and Limerick and just a small sliver of Kerry, the Shannon and the Galway Bay.

Usually when McGrath comes over the mountain it is because their womenfolk, who are close friends, have gone to town. That happened to be also the case on this evening but, from the look on his face, Kavenagh also knew that McGrath was excited about something he’d found on the mountain. Once he had found a gold coin that is now in the Museum in Dublin.

He’d also found old flint arrowheads, the head of a stone axe, other artifacts from the times and seasons of all the mountainy men that had dwelt on the mountains before them.

Like all hill farmers both men are intensely interested in all of that, all the lores of the weather, all the animals and insects and histories of their place.

Kavenagh could tell McGrath was very excited, though he said nothing as he sat down on the other side of the fire. Kavenagh poured him a cup of tea from the warm teapot on the range and then, after a quick glance, went to the cupboard and poured two small glasses of whiskey.

He sat back in his own chair again silently. He knew what was coming would come when McGrath was ready. They both sipped.

“I caught one,” said McGrath. “I caught one less than an hour ago beside Fonsie’s Well. I have him in my pocket. I told you they were in it and you didn’t believe me. But I have the proof in my pocket.”

He took a St. Bruno’s tobacco tin box from his right hand coat pocket. He left it on the table between them. He got a pint glass from Kavenagh’s dresser behind him. He left it beside the box.

He opened the hinged lid and quickly clapped the pint glass, mouth down, on top of what was within. Kavenagh put on his gold-rimmed spectacles and leaned over to look closely.

Sitting on a white blade of grass was a stunningly beautiful, bright blue butterfly. He was about the same size as the tortoise-shell butterflies that, along with the cabbage whites, are almost the only commonly seen butterflies in Ireland nowadays.

He almost glowed with a kind of luminescent blued light. He looked totally at home inside the box.

“My God,” whispered Kavenagh. And again he said it, his face right up against the glass. “I thought I saw one once when I was a child but never since. I thought they were gone out of it like all the others. My good God.”

Kavenagh just smiled. “I told you they were in it. Here’s the living proof of it for you.” He sipped his glass again.

Kavenagh went down to the parlor and came back in minutes with his reference book of butterflies and moths of the British Isles. He has many such books.

He began to search through it. He eventually found his page, with a half-plate bright illustration, and compared it, for maybe two minutes by the clock, minutely, his gaze flicking from page to glass before saying, “It’s a Holly Blue for sure. They are supposed to be extinct in this part of the west for the last 50 years. But it’s a Holly Blue. Look there for yourself.”

“I don’t need to look,” said Kavenagh. “I know him. And you know the story better than me about the Blue Butterfly that always brings 20 years good luck to the mountain when he comes. Isn’t that what we were always told when we were young fellows?”

“For sure.”

Kavenagh refilled their glasses. They drank in deep contentment, every now and again looking closely into the glass. The Holly Blue at last began to flutter inside it as a ray of sun came through the window and illuminated its crystal prison.

“I hope he has a couple of wives out there waiting for him,” said McGrath at last. He took the pint glass away from the box. The Holly Blue perched motionless for a few seconds and then it flew through the sunlight and out the open door.

The two men followed out to the doorstep. It turned back in the direction of McGrath’s side of the mountain, jerking along the line of its flight.

“He knows the good side of the hill anyway,” said McGrath.

Below them, as if in celebration of something special, they could hear the bells of three or four chapels beginning the Angelus.

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