Lemming Lore

[deckardcanine]

The lemming is the focus of a lot of busted myths.
The best-known one today is that they throw themselves off cliffs
For suicidal purposes. Despite what I’ve been told,
That didn’t start with Disney; no, the myth was pretty old
When Disney made White Wilderness and forced a bunch to drown.
The truth is, when they crowd along a cliff, they may fall down
And try to swim to safety, but it doesn’t always work.
The rather rapid die-offs make the lemmings seem berserk,
Tho partly it results from competition and predation.
Their “suicides” were not the first mistaken ideation:
Before Linnaeus came along, a scholar’s thought for why
Their numbers rise so fast was that they plummet from the sky.
More recently, when some folks heard “exploding population,”
They got the mental image of a lemming detonation.
Important as it is to spread the truth, I have to say,
Without these myths, I might not know what lemmings are today.