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The Butterfly who Sang
Terry Jones
A butterfly was once sitting on a leaf looking extremely sad.
"What's wrong?" asked a friendly frog.
"Oh," said the butterfly, "nobody really appreciates me," and she parted her beautiful red and blue wings and shut them again.
"What d'you mean?" asked the frog. "I've seen you flying about and thought to myself: that is one hell of a beautiful butterfly! All my friends think you look great, too! You're a real stunner!"
"Oh, that," replied the butterfly, and she opened her wings again. "Who cares about my looks? It's my singing that nobody appreciates."
"I've never heard your singing: but if it's anywhere near as good as your looks, you've got it made!" said the frog.
"That's the trouble," replied the butterfly. "People say they can't hear my singing. I suppose it's so refined and so high that their ears aren't sensitive enough to pick it up."
"But I bet it's great all the same!" said the frog.
"It is," said the butterfly. "Would you like me to sing
for you?"
"Well . . . I don't suppose my ears are sensitive enough to pick it up, but I'll give it a try!" said the frog.
So the butterfly spread her wings and opened her mouth. The frog gazed in wonder
at the butterfly's beautiful wings, for he'd never been so close to them before.
The butterfly sang on and on, and still the frog gazed at her wings absolutely captivated, even though he could hear nothing whatsoever of her singing.
Eventually, however, the butterfly stopped, and closed up her wings.
"Beautiful!" said the frog, thinking about the wings. "Thank you," said the butterfly, thrilled that at last she had found an appreciative listener.
After that, the frog came every day to listen to the butterfly sing,
though all that time he was really feasting his eyes on her beautiful wings. And every day, the butterfly tried harder and harder to impress the frog with her singing, even though he could not hear a single note of it.
But one day a moth, who was jealous of all the attention the butterfly was getting, took the butterfly on one side and said: "Butterfly, your singing is quite superb."
"Thank you," said the butterfly.
"With just a little more practice," said the cunning moth, "you could be as famous a singer as the nightingale."
"Do you think so?" asked the butterfly, flattered beyond words.
"I certainly do," replied the moth. "Indeed, perhaps you already do sing better than the nightingale, only it's difficult to concentrate on your music because your gaudy wings are so distracting."
"Is that right?" said the butterfly.
"I'm afraid so," said the moth. "You notice the
nightingale is wiser, and wears only dull brown feathers so as not to distract from her singing."
"You're right!" cried the butterfly. "I was a fool not to have realized that before!"
 And straight away she found some earth and rubbed it into her wings until they were all grey and half the colours had rubbed off.
The next day, the frog arrived for the concert as usual, but when the butterfly opened her wings he cried out: "Oh! Butterfly! What have you done to your beautiful wings?" And the butterfly explained what she had done.
"I think you will find," she said, "that now you will be able to concentrate more on my music."
Well, the poor frog tried, but it was no good, for of course he couldn't hear anything at all. So he soon became bored, and hopped off into the pond.
And after that the butterfly never could find anyone to listen to her singing.
 
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