Daddy longlegs
A daddy longlegs is one of three different animals, depending on who is speaking: a harvestman, a cellar spider or, in Britain, a crane fly. In English harvest lore, killing one was thought to spoil the harvest.
What it may mean
Almost everyone has heard it: daddy longlegs are the most venomous spiders in the world, saved only by fangs too short to bite through skin. It sounds scientific, and it is wrong. Harvestmen have no venom glands at all, cellar spiders have a mild bite, and crane flies, which the British also call daddy longlegs, cannot bite. Entomologists have spent years correcting the story, and it keeps coming back because it is fun to tell. Rumors like this attach to gentle things all the time: the shy neighbor said to have a past, the dog breed said to snap, the dish said to be dangerous. The creature itself goes on walking slowly across the bathroom ceiling, harming no one. The next time you see one, you might check one frightening story you repeat about something harmless.
Depending on how you saw it
A harvestman in the garden
Harvestmen look like spiders but are not: one oval body instead of two parts, two eyes instead of eight, no silk and no venom. They eat small insects and decaying matter. What have you lumped together with something else that would make more sense on its own?
At harvest time in England
On the Isle of Wight, a 1903 collection says, reapers took care not to kill or hurt a daddy longlegs, for fear of harm to themselves. The busiest season had its small protected creatures. Whom do you take special care not to hurt when you are at your busiest?
A crane fly at a British window
In Britain, daddy longlegs usually refers to the crane fly, a gangly insect that bumps against windows in late summer, while Americans picture a spider or a harvestman. Which everyday word means something different to you than to the person you are chatting with?
Why it happens in nature
The name covers at least three animals. Harvestmen are arachnids but not spiders, with one body section, two eyes and no fangs or venom glands. Cellar spiders are true spiders with a mild bite that is not dangerous to people. Crane flies are long-legged insects, and many adults lack working mouthparts.
What folk beliefs say
England
In England, a 1903 collection says, killing a daddy longlegs will cause a bad harvest.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 612. View the page
England (Isle of Wight)
In the Isle of Wight, the reapers took care not to kill or hurt a daddy longlegs, as doing so would bring them evil.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 873. View the page
To reflect on
Which frightening story do you still repeat about someone or something that has never harmed you?