page_title: Pest (organism)
section_title: In mythology, religion, folklore and culture
hierarchical_section_title: Pest (organism) / In mythology, religion, folklore and culture
context_page_description: A pest is any animal or plant deleterious to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock and forestry, or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes. Humans have modified the environment for their own purposes and are intolerant of other creatures occupying the same space when their activities impact adversely on human objectives. Thus, an elephant is unobjectionable in its natural habitat but a pest if it tramples crops.
  Some animals are disliked because they bite or sting; snakes, wasps, ants, bed bugs, fleas and ticks belong in this category. Others enter the home thus invading our own private space; these include houseflies, which land on and contaminate food, beetles which tunnel into the woodwork, and other animals that scuttle about on the floor at night, like cockroaches, rats and mice, which are often associated with insanitary conditions.
  Agricultural and horticultural crops are attacked by a wide variety of pests, the most important being insects, mites, nematodes and gastropod molluscs.
context_section_description: Pests have attracted human attention from the birth of civilisation. Plagues of locusts caused devastation in the ancient Middle East, and were recorded in tombs in Ancient Egypt from as early as 2470 BC, and in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, as taking place in Egypt around 1446 BC. Homer's Iliad mentions locusts taking to the wing to escape fire. Given the impact of agricultural pests on human lives, people have prayed for deliverance. For example, the 10th century Greek monk Tryphon of Constantinople is said to have prayed "Snails, earwigs and all other creatures, hurt not the vines, nor the land nor the fruit of the trees, nor the vegetables ... but depart into the wild mountains."
  The 11th-century Old English medical text Lacnunga contained charms and spells to ward off or treat pests such as wid smeogan wyrme, "penetrating worms", in this case requiring a charm to be sung, accompanied by covering the wound with spittle, pounded green centaury, and hot cow's urine.
  The 20th century "prayer against pests" including the words "By Your power may these injurious animals be driven off so that they will do no harm to any one and will leave our fields and meadows unharmed" was printed in the 1956 Rural Life Prayerbook.
caption: Locust detail from a hunt mural in the grave-chamber of Horemhab, Ancient Egypt, 1422–1411 BC
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