The Blue Bird...

I hope that you like my story about the Blue Bird..Every day the blue bird came to his branch and sang. He’d been singing on this branch, on this tree since he wasn’t much bigger than an egg. The forest, dark and quiet, surrounded him. Every day he sang without fail, he sang to the trees and the sky, his tune sweet and melodic carried away on summer breeze and winter gale.

One day an old man carrying a wooden stool and an old battered fiddle appeared beneath his tree. The man set down his stool, took up his fiddle, and began to accompany the blue bird’s song. The blue bird followed the old fiddlers tune. The music they made together was wonderful, a total harmony of sound, both melody and obbligato, a musical experience to rival any orchestra. So joyous a sound was it that on hearing it the sad would smile and the happy laugh - never was there music so uplifting as that made by the blue bird and the old fiddler.

Each day the blue bird sang and the old fiddler played his violin. Word of the wonderful duet began to spread far and wide and the people of the city started to come to the forest to listen. It wasn’t long before the king himself came to the forest. He was enchanted by the music and - as if the way with kings - wanted to own it alone so that he could listen whenever he wanted without the inconvenience of the journey to the forest.

“Catch the bird and bring the old fiddler to court.” The king ordered his council. “The fiddler shall sit on a golden chair and we will make the bird a golden cage, on a golden branch, on a golden tree, and they shall sing and play for my delight.”

So the King’s men were sent to the forest and caught the blue bird within a silver net. Then they dragged the old fiddler from his cottage despite his pleas and took him to the Palace, leaving behind his poor sick wife to fend for herself.

The Blue bird and the old man played for the King each day. At first their performances were as sweet and melodious ever. But as time went by their music became sadder and darker until one day their once sweet music became a cacophony of despair. On hearing the mournful duet the ladies of the court bust into tears at the sorrow and heartache from which their music seemed woven. Soon the courtiers stopped enjoying their performance and the King stayed away altogether.

Time and things went on as time and things generally do, but the blue bird missed his freedom and the old fiddler worried for his wife. Soon they became dull and listless, then ill, and then one day the old fiddler simply died and the blue bird sang no longer.

He could not sing alone and his heart yearned for his partner. The blue bird had become one half of a duet and he could not remember how to sing without the other half. It was as if he’d forgotten his solo singing long ago in the forest.

“Set that sad creature free.” The King declared one October morning. “What is the use of a bird that will not sing? Take the golden cage, the golden branch, and the golden tree and have my goldsmith make a wonder to amuse me. There is no wonderment or amusement in that pathetic bird. Throw him from the castle window.”

And so the blue bird was thrown roughly from the castle window to make his slow way back to the forest alone.

The blue bird sat on his old branch but he could not sing. He missed the old fiddler and he longed for the music they made together. The songless days went by and by until one day a small girl wandered into the forest and stood beneath the blue bird’s tree. She looked up.

‘Why do you not sing you pretty bird and shall you sing for me?”

She smiled and with her smile the blue bird’s spirits suddenly lifted. He remembered when he too was young and alone in the forest - and on remembering the blue bird began to sing of that time. It was the old song but deeply richer, made wonderful with experience, some part melancholy, some part regret, some part knowledge of what had been.

From that day forwards the blue bird would sing each day. From dawn till dusk he could be heard telling the whole world who he was, and where he’d been, and how he got there, and how he felt about the journey. Sometimes people would come to listen, sometimes the girl would come and sing along with him - but often nobody came and the blue bird sang on anyway.

We should all sing our songs – it matters not if people listen. There is no better song than the song that you sing for yourself, and the tune is made richer for a life that has been lived.