One moment he sat silent and gazed into the mist, with an unutterably
weary expression. Then he began to talk to his companion. Then the other
one took out some bread and cheese from his knapsack, to eat his evening
meal. He answered scarcely anything, but listened very patiently, just
as if he were thinking: "I might as well give you the pleasure of
letting you chatter a while."
"Now I shall tell you something, Eric," said the old shepherd. "I have
figured out that in former days, when both human beings and animals were
much larger than they are now, that the butterflies, too, must have been
uncommonly large. And once there was a butterfly that was many miles
long, and had wings as wide as seas. Those wings were blue, and shone
like silver, and so gorgeous that, when the butterfly was out flying,
all the other animals stood still and stared at it. It had this
drawback, however, that it was too large. The wings had hard work to
carry it. But probably all would have gone very well, if the butterfly
had been wise enough to remain on the hillside. But it wasn't; it
ventured out over the East sea. And it hadn't gotten very far before the
storm came along and began to tear at its wings. Well, it's easy to
understand, Eric, how things would go when the East sea storm commenced
to wrestle with frail butterfly-wings.
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