I learned why they're called lightning bugs recently, it's from a Cherokee myth. Dumping
>When the animals came down to Earth, there was no Fire and all was cold. Thunder, who lived in Galulati toward the west, heard the animals talking about how cold it was. So he struck a high peak on the island, causing a large hole, where he put Fire.
>The animals saw smoke coming from the hole and wished they could get the Fire. So they held a council.
>First the Eagle said he would go and get Fire from the hole, for he was so swift that he thought he could bring it back in a gourd, which he tied to his neck with a vine. But when he got to the Fire hole and attempted, with his beak, to dip the gourd down into the Fire for coals, his feathers and beak were scorched black, and the gourd burned up. So he returned without the Fire.
>Next the Crow said he would go and try to get the Fire. The Crow took a long stick in his beak and flew over to the Fire hole. He stood on the brink of the hole and put the dry stick down into the Fire so that it would burn in the flames. When the stick caught afire, he pulled it out with his feet, but the flames from the stick burned his feet and the smoke from the hole scorched his feathers. He failed and flew back without the Fire.
>The next two birds which volunteered to get the Fire from the hole were the Buzzard and the Tur- key. But the same thing happened to them that happened to the Eagle and the Crow. They were burned black.
