ABSTRACT
Kelly (1983), including Old English beomoder in the 900s.
As man became interested in bees in their own right, they seemed most mysterious and therefore magical creatures. Singly the bees flew out and home again; more astonishingly, at a certain season they flew out as a swarm that seemed to have a mind of its own. They showed miraculous fertility: after the end of a dearth period when growth had been halted, a handful of bees would increase their number in a short time to a swirling mass, yet their method of generation could not be seen or understood, as could that of mammals and birds .. .. Moreover their dwelling on earth was a dark cavity which some scholars regard as a symbol of the womb where the human soul itself was generated.
