Not only did the British believe that their friends were in Elysium, but they likewise supposed themselves to be under the personal and immediate guardianship of the "gentry". The Rev. S. Baring-Gould refers to the beautiful legends which centre around this belief as too often, alas, but apples of Sodom, fair cheeked, but containing the dust and ashes of heathenism. After lamenting the heresy--"too often current among the lower orders and dissenters"--that the souls of the departed become angels, he goes on to explain: "In Judaic and Christian doctrine the angel creation is distinct from that of human beings, and a Jew or a Catholic would as little dream of confusing the distinct conception of angel and soul as of believing in metempsychosis. But not so dissenting religion. According to Druidic dogma the souls of the dead were guardians of the living, a belief shared with the Ancient Indians, etc. Thus the hymn, 'I want to be an Angel,' so popular in dissenting schools, is founded on a venerable Aryan myth and therefore of exceeding interest, but Christian it is not."[185] Lucan, the Roman poet, alluding to the Druids observed-- If dying mortals doom they sing aright, No ghosts descend to dwell in dreadful night No parting souls to grisly Pluto go Nor seek the dreary silent shades below, But forth they fly immortal to their kind And other bodies in new worlds they find. [Illustration: FIG. 45.--From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).] The symbolism of the butterfly is crystallised in the word _psyche_, which in Greek meant not only _butterfly_ but also _soul_, and to this day butterflies in some districts of Great Britain are considered to be souls, though this may have arisen not from an ethereal imagination, but from the ancient doctrine of metemphsychosis which the Druids seemingly held. It was certainly believed that souls, like serpents, shed their old coverings and assumed newer and more lovely forms, that all things changed, but that nothing perished. In Cornwall moths, regarded by some as souls, by others as fairies, are known as pisgies or piskies. The connection between the Cornish words _pisgie_ or _piskie_ and the Greek _psyche_ has been commented upon as being "curious but surely casual". Grimm has recorded that in old German, the caterpillar was named Alba, and that the Alp often takes the form of a butterfly.[186] Referring to Ossian, Dr. Waddell states: "He recognised the Deity, if he could be said to recognise him at all, as an omnipresent vital essence everywhere diffused in the world, or centred for a lifetime in heroes. He himself, his kindred, his forefathers, and the human race at large were dependent solely on the atmosphere, their souls were identified with the air, heaven was their natural home, earth their temporary residence."